Denmark’s Nykredit Asset Management is splitting its business into two distinct divisions in the wake of the decision by its managing director to move to rival BankInvest.

The two new sections are Nykredit Asset Management – which manages investments on behalf of clients – and Nykredit Portfolio Administration, which undertakes outsourced investment administration.

Nykredit Asset Management will have a new two-man leadership team, while Nykredit Portfolio Administration will become an independent business area under Nykredit Wholesale, according to the plan.

Group director Kim Duus said: “The organisational change is, of course, an extension of our strategic aim of having an increased focus and a strong orientation towards customers, as well as happening against the background of the decision by Lars Bo Bertram – until now managing director – to look for new challenges.”

Asset manager BankInvest announced today that it had appointed Bo Bertram as the new chief executive of both BI Holding and the BankInvest Group. 

Nykredit said Bo Bertram would leave the company’s executive board with effect from today.

Following his departure, the board will comprise managing directors Bjørn Mortensen, Georg Andersen and Jesper Berg, it said.

The new leadership team at Nykredit Asset Management will be the current investment director Peter Kjærgaard and the new client director Morten Therkildsen.

Therkildsen is coming to Nykredit from a job at Carnegie Asset Management.

Meanwhile, Nykredit Portfolio Administration will be led by director Jim Isager Larsen, who was previously responsible for clients in the same business area.

Therkildsen, Kjærgaard and Isager Larsen will all report to Duus, Nykredit said.

Duus said Nykredit had a focused asset management business with some unique skills, and was also Denmark’s largest administrator of mutual funds. 

“Both areas have now evolved to a level where a division is natural,” he said. 

“It gives us a better opportunity to focus and define specific objectives for each area, and in this way create the basis for further growth.”

Isager Larsen said that, as separate business areas, the vision of each section would become clearer, both for their customers and staff.

“Our asset management services are sought after, and we must take advantage of that because the demand for low costs and economies of scale will intensify in the future,” he said.

Before coming to Nykredit, Bo Bertram worked for Danske Bank, and he is also chairman of the CFA Society Denmark.

At BankInvest, Bo Bertram will be stepping into the shoes of the firm’s current chief executive Bo Foged, who – as reported by IPE in May – has been appointed group finance director at Danish statutory pension fund ATP.

Foged will start his new role at ATP on 1 January 2015, on which day Bo Bertram will take up his job as the head of BankInvest.

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