LCP, LOIM, PASA, PTL, Asset Management Exchange, APG, GAM, PostNL, Danica Pension, Achmea, Morningstar, Kempen, Patrizia, Schroders, Man Group, BlueBay, AXA IM, AFM

Lane Clark & Peacock (LCP) – LCP has announced that former pensions minister Steve Webb is to join the firm as a partner. He joins from Royal London Asset Management where he has been policy director since 2015. At LCP he will work closely on the firm’s client service offering to help adapt it for the future in the context of an ever-evolving regulatory environment. He will also help the firm spearhead campaigns to assist the wider pensions industry stay apace with change and member needs. The appointment comes as the firm positions itself for future growth.

Lombard Odier Investment Managers (LOIM) – Alexis Maubourguet has been hired to launch an uncorrelated absolute return strategy for institutional clients, due to go live in early 2020. Maubourguet was formerly a volatility portfolio manager at Argentière Capital, where he launched and managed its relative value opportunities fund.

Maubourguet will leverage his past experience by providing clients with a new strategy, called 1798 ADAPT (Acyclical Diversifying Alpha via Parameters Trading), which aims to benefit from dislocations on derivatives parameters (volatility, correlation, dividends), both structural and occasional, across asset classes (equity, FX and commodity).

Pensions Administration Standards Association (PASA) – The independent body dedicated to driving up standards in pensions administration, has named Paul Sturgess as board director, effective from 1 January. He replaces Tracy Weller who stepped down on 31 December 2019 after three years in the position. Sturgess was previously PASA membership and funding committee chair. He is managing director benefits at RPMI and has more than 38 years of experience in the pensions industry across both defined benefit and defined contribution occupational schemes.

PTL – The independent trustee and governance services provider has appointed Steve Longworth as client director. He joins PTL with 25 years of experience in pensions, having spent time on both trustee and corporate clients at several pension consultancies. He is a qualified actuary and most recently worked for KPMG, and before that for PwC, Deloitte and Mercer.

Richard Butcher, PTL’s managing director, said: “Professional trusteeship is an increasingly demanding and dynamic part of the pensions industry, and we have ambitious plans to become the leading firm in this space.” He added that the firm grew by more than 20% in its last financial year and is already exceeding its targets for this year.

“Steve is the first of four imminent new hires at client director level, which we will be announcing in the coming months,” Butcher said.

Asset Management Exchange (AMX) – JP Morgan’s former head of liquidity product development has joined AMX, a $9.5bn institutional platform for investors and asset managers, as head of product, where she will lead a team of four product specialists. Kerrie Mitchener-Nissen was at JP Morgan for 13 years, most recently as head of international product development, a role in which she was responsible for setting and executing the product strategy for the global liquidity line of business.

AMX was launched in February 2017 by Willis Towers Watson, and aims to standardise, centralise and streamline investing.

APG – Jaap van Manen, supervisory chair at Dutch asset manager and pensions provider APG, has stepped down “for personal reasons”. His role has been temporarily taken over by Pieter Jongstra, the current vice chair of the supervisory board (RvC). At the start of 2019, Van Manen succeeded Bart le Blanc, who had stepped down six months earlier. He has chaired the committee developing the code for corporate governance in the Netherlands.

Gaston Siegelaer has been appointed as product specialist for quantitative strategies, tasked with co-ordination between APG’s fiduciary department and its portfolio managers of quantitative investment products. He has been an independent pensions consultant during the past years, and will keep working for fintech firm Vive as an adviser on financial robotics. Prior to this, Siegelaer has worked at (Willis) Towers Watson, pensions regulator De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB) and pure play asset manager Robeco.

Pensioenfonds PostNL – Caspar Vlaar has joined the board of the €9.4bn Dutch pension fund PostNL following a nomination by the company’s central works council (COR). He succeeded Ron Harmsen who completed three four-year terms. Vlaar is also a trustee at the €11bn pension fund of telecoms giant KPN. He is employed by the organisational consultancy Linxx.

Kempen - The asset manager has appointed Peter Ruesink as fiduciary manager and director of its client solutions team. He will focus on serving institutional fiduciary clients on strategy and data science. During the past five years, Ruesink worked at Allianz Global Investors, where he was responsible for institutional clients in the Benelux. Prior to this, he was head of investment solutions at Aegon Asset Management. He also worked at ABN Amro and Mercer.

GAM Investments – Giovanni D’Alesio has been hired as head of research for GAM’s alternative investment solutions business, effective 13 January. Based in London, he will be responsible for leading the firm’s external fund manager research team and managing portfolios that combine external managers and other investment exposures, including betas, factors and alternative risk premia. The team employs a disciplined and risk-focused process to identify and combine talented managers across asset classes and investment styles, blending high-conviction qualitative views with proprietary quantitative modelling tools.

D’Alesio was formerly a partner and head of investment origination at Capital Generation Partners, where he led a team focused exclusively on sourcing and monitoring active investment opportunities across equity, fixed income, hedge funds and real assets for the multi-billion dollar business. Prior to that, he spent eight years at Italian fund of hedge funds Unifortune Asset Management, most recently as head of research, where he was responsible for all research and due diligence on hedge funds across a wide spectrum of strategies. He was also a member of the firm’s investment committee.

Länsförsäkringar — Swedish pensions and insurance group Länsförsäkringar has appointed Mathias Collén as the new chief executive officer of its unit-linked insurance subsidiary Länsförsäkringar Fondliv. He replaces the business’ most recent CEO Tua Holgersson, who left the company in autumn 2019 to head up Swedish insurance firm Bliwa Livförsäkring. Collén has worked for Länsförsäkringar for nearly six years, and became head of the life insurance business unit in May last year – a title he will continue to hold. Before working in that role, he led corporate business at Länsförsäkringar Stockholm, having been a Skandia employee earlier on. Collén will begin work in the new role on 1 February.

Danica Pension - Poul Kobberup has been promoted to CIO of Danica Pension, with effect from yesterday (15 January). He is replacing Anders Svennesen, who has been CIO of both Danica Pension and Danske Bank’s wealth management unit up to now. Svennesen will now concentrate solely on wealth management, the company said, focusing on new product development within investment and capital management. Kobberup has worked at the Danske Bank pensions subsidiary for four years, having been investment director for illiquid assets until now. In his new role he is taking responsibility for all investment activity at the firm.

Achmea IM – Renier Brenninkmeijer and Daniëlle Schuurmans have started as director business developement and associate director business development, respectively, at Dutch asset manager Achmea Investment Management. Brenninkmeijer joined from asset manager Robeco, where he has been responsible for institutional marketing. Schuurmans worked as an investment risk manager for operational due diligence at asset manager PGGM.

AFM – The Dutch communication supervisor Authority Financial Markets said Gerben Everts would step down as a trustee as of 12 May. His responsibilities at the AFM include capital markets, asset managers and accountants. Everts, who joined the board in 2012, was also tasked with the supervisory preparations for new foreign players moving to the Netherlands following Brexit. He is to remain chair of the international working group assessing vulnerabilities in accountancy.

Morningstar – Ron Bundy has been hired to lead the evolution and growth of Morningstar’s global indexes business. He joined the firm in December as managing director, Morningstar Indexes. He was most recently CEO of North America benchmarks and head of strategic accounts for global index provider FTSE Russell. Prior to Russell’s 2014 acquisition, Bundy served as CEO of the Russel Index Group, where he grew a U.S.-centric business 20-fold into a truly global operation.

BlueBay Asset Management – The specialist fixed income manager has appointed Mihai Florian as senior portfolio manager to further develop BlueBay’s emerging market debt illiquid corporate credit strategies through co-investment opportunities and new closed-ended investment strategies. The role is a new role and comes as BlueBay plans to this year launch new EM illiquid corporate credit investment strategies.

Before joining BlueBay Florian was a founding partner for the credit strategies at Helios Investment Partners, an EM private markets investment manager. Other former roles include head of Structuring for fixed income, currencies and commodities for EM at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Patrizia – The real estate investment firm has appointed Alberto González de las Heras as its new head of asset management South-West Europe. Based at the firm’s Madrid office, he now oversees the asset management for France, Italy, Portugal and Spain, with responsibility for managing around €4.55bn in assets.

González de las Heras, who joins from Meridia Capital in Spain has a proven 20-year track record in pan-European real estate management, including in markets such as Germany, Slovakia, Belgium and the Czech Republic. He reports to Rikke Lykke, head of European asset management and regional head DACH/CEE.

Schroders – The asset manager has appointed a deputy head of credit for Europe as the firm continues to grow its global credit capability in response to clients’ evolving investment needs. Julien Houdain has assumed the newly-created role and will be based in London. He will report into Patrick Vogel, head of credit for Europe.

Houdain will manage the recently launched Schroder ISF Global Credit Income Short Duration fund, and will work alongside Vogel and the credit team on Schroders’ credit strategy. He joins from Legal & General Investment Management where he was most recently head of global bond strategies, having joined the asset manager in 2007.

In November, Schroders announced it had hired Saida Eggerstedt as head of sustainable credit, another newly-created role which entails working in partnership with Schroders’ Sustainability and Fixed Income teams.

Man Group  – Robert Furdak has been appointed to the newly created role of chief investment officer for environmental, social and governance (ESG) as the asset manager seeks to bolster its broader commitment to responsible investment. Based in Boston, Massachusetts, Furdak will report to Sandy Rattray, Man Group CIO. 

Furdak most recently served as co-CIO of Man Numeric, the firm’s fundamentally-driven quantitative investment business, as well as chairman of Man Numeric’s investment committee and head of Man Numeric’s US/Global group. 

AXA Investment Managers – Effective 16 January, Godefroy de Colombe is the firm’s new global chief operating officer, joining from Direct Assurance, AXA’s P&C e-insurance business where he was CEO. Based in Paris, he will be a member of the AXA IM Management Board reporting to Gérald Harlin, executive chair of AXA IM.

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