People moves: New co-chair at €87bn PMT, Velliv CIO joins exec board [updated]

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Barings, Nuveen, Velliv, Barnett Waddingham, PMT, Church of England, aba, BNPP AM, Loomis, Janus Henderson, Swiss Life AM, Invesco, Mercia

PMT – Terry Troost will succeed Benne van Popta as chair of the Dutch metals scheme PMT from 1 January 2021. He will be one of two chairs of the €87bn fund, representing the employers. Jos Brocken is chair on behalf of the employees. Troost has a background in HR management.

Troost has been a member of the PMT board since 2018, and quit his job as HR director at technical service provider Spie Groep in April this year to prepare for his new role, he said in a press release.

“During nine months of intensive preparation I have acquired all the required knowledge for the job by working together with Benne van Popta,” he said.

Velliv — Anders Stensbøl Christiansen, the CIO of Danish mutual pensions provider Velliv, has been appointed as the newest member of the firm’s executive board. He has been Velliv’s CIO since July 2017, and the firm announced he would join its board on 1 January 2021, while remaining CIO. Before taking on his current role at Velliv, Stensbøl Christiansen worked in Nordea’s life and pensions business since 2012, latterly as head of equities and before that, as senior investment officer. Velliv is a customer-owned firm which grew out of the Nordea’s Danish life and pensions operation.

Barnett Waddingham – The UK actuarial and consultancy services provider has appointed Reena Tanna as senior investment consultant to advise defined contribution (DC) schemes. Her role will include providing investment advice to a range of DC clients including trust-based pension schemes and master trusts.

Previously at Aon, for 13 years, Tanna led investment advice on defined benefit and DC schemes ranging in size from £25m to £3bn.

Church of England – Loretta Minghella plans to step down from the post of First Church Estates Commissioner next summer, a role in which she is responsible for the strategic oversight of the Church Commissioners’ £8.3bn investment portfolio.

She will be leaving to take up a post at Cambridge University.

She said: “It’s been an honour to have been First Commissioner for these last three years and to have worked with so many talented and committed colleagues. I look forward to a very busy period ahead, before returning to Clare in October 2021.

“I am proud of what the Church Commissioners have achieved since 2017, allocating over £900m of funding for the Church’s mission in this triennium whilst engaging robustly with the companies we invest in on climate change, gender equality and other key issues and so ensuring that our investment activities contribute most effectively to the common good.”

aba – Georg Thurnes has been re-elected as chair of the executive board of the German pension fund association. Thurnes, who served for 30 years as chief actuary at consultancy Aon Hewitt in Germany, is now an actuary and an independent consultant for company pension schemes. He has been chair at aba since 2019.

Dirk Jargstorff, ceo of Bosch Pensionsfonds, and Richard Nicka, chair of the executive board of BASF Pensionskasse VVaG and BASF Sterbekasse VVaG, and board member of BASF Pensionstreuhand e.V., have been confirmed as deputy chairs. Jargstorff has served as a member of the executive board at aba since 2017. He has been a deputy chair since 2019. Nicka was elected as a member of the executive board at aba in 2008 and has been deputy chair since 2011. Johannes Teslau, head of “Altersversorgung und Zeit-Wertpapier” at Volkswagen, is a new member of the board. He has been a member of the expert committee on labour law at aba since 2012.

Barings – Mike Freno is replacing Tom Finke as chairman and CEO with immediate effect, the US asset manager has announced. Finke will retire from Barings at the end of November.

Freno, who has been with the Mass Mutual subsidiary for more than 15 years, assumed the role of president of Barings in February. In a statement, the firm said that since then, Freno had successfully integrated all of its investments businesses – public and private credit, real estate and specialty equity markets – in addition to operations, technology, product management, distribution and marketing.

”He further strengthened the firm during a year of market volatility and uncertainty – managing a multiyear transformation while continuing to remain focused on the long-term for Barings and its clients,” it said.

Nuveen – Cora Gibbons has joined Nuveen as managing director to lead and manage key product strategy, development and management initiatives in Europe, as well as contributing to the product strategy globally.

She joins Nuveen from Artemis, where she was head of product for two years. Her prior experience includes roles at other asset managers including Invesco, Allianz Global Investors and Barings. She was also chairperson of the European Fund Classification Committee of EFAMA from 2010-2018 and recently served as chair of the Investment Association’s product development & regulations committee.

BNP Paribas Asset Management –Séverine Piquet has been named head of corporate credit research, reporting to Dominick DeAlto, BNPP AM’s chief investment officer for global fixed income.

Piquet has been a member of BNPP AM’s credit research team since 2011, having previously been an equity portfolio manager focusing on the European insurance and healthcare sectors. She joined BNPP AM from Fortis Investments.

Loomis, Sayles & Company – The affiliate company of Natixis Investment Managers has announced the addition of an eight-strong European credit team in connection with the launch of three euro credit investment strategies, available for institutional separate account management.

The Loomis Sayles euro credit team is based in its new European office in Utrecht, Netherlands. The team – seven portfolio managers and one product manager – will be co-led by portfolio managers Rik den Hartog and Pim van Mourik Broekman. They both join from Kempen Capital Management.

Kevin Charleston, chair and CEO, said: “Similar to all Loomis Sayles investment teams, their investment process is rooted in a differentiated investment philosophy, which has a strong track record of alpha generation.”

Janus Henderson Investors – Paul LaCoursiere has been appointed to the newly created role of global head of environmental, social and governance (ESG) investments.

He will join on 6 January from Aviva Investors, where he held various roles since 2014, most recently global head of ESG research. He has also previously worked at Chicago Equity Partners, Barclays Global Investors, and Munder Capital Management.

Swiss Life Asset Managers – Valérie de Robillard has joined the asset manager to drive the ESG strategy of its real estate and infrastructure activities. She will work alternately in Paris and Zurich, reporting to Nelufer Ansari, ESG director of the AM division, and will sit on the ESG board.

Before joining Swiss Life, de Robillard was group corporate social responsiblity director at Nexity from 2016. Before that she worked for eight years at Utopies, a sustainable development consultancy and think tank. She was a member of Observatoire de l’Immobilier Durable, OID or Green Building Observatory, which aims to promote sustainable development and innovation in the real estate industry.

Invesco — Invesco has appointed Fredrik Nilsson as its new head of exchange-traded funds (ETF) business development for the Nordic region. The asset management firm said Nilsson would be based in Stockholm, reporting to its head of the Nordic region Stefan Behring. Nilsson is to join Invesco from his current job at BlackRock Asset Management, where he is responsible for institutional sales for iShares ETFs in the Nordic region.

Prior to this, he worked for Royal Bank of Scotland in London as vice president within equity derivatives and structured retail. Nilsson is also currently president of Swedish investment professionals association, the CFA Society Sweden, having been in that role since September 2019.

Mercia Asset Management – The specialist asset manager, which holds around £800m in assets under management, has announced that Diane Seymour-Williams has been appointed as a non-executive director of the company with immediate effect. She is a non-executive director of Standard Life Private Equity Trust plc, PraxisIFM Group Limited and SEI Investments (Europe) Ltd, and is a director of Acorn Capital Advisers Limited.

Most recently Seymour-Williams was also a non-executive director of Brooks Macdonald Group Plc, serving a nine-year tenure. She has significant industry experience, having worked at Deutsche Asset Management Group (previously Morgan Grenfell) for over 23 years where she held various senior positions, including CIO and CEO for Asia.

Seymour-Williams subsequently spent nine years at LGM Investments Limited, a specialist global emerging and frontier markets equities manager, where she was global head of relationship management. Her non-executive experience spans the quoted wealth and asset management, global equity, private equity, investment services and VCT sectors. She is a pro-bono member of the Investment Committees of Newnham College, Cambridge and the Canal & River Trust.