People moves: Janus Henderson hires quartet for global EM equities

Janus Henderson Investors, UBS, Elo, Alma Property Partners, Sampension, UN Joint Staff Pension Fund, BMO Global Asset Management, Quantum Advisory, Global Reporting Initiative

Janus Henderson Investors – The €287bn asset manager has made four hires to appoint a global emerging markets equities team, replacing five staff who left earlier this year. Daniel Graña will lead the efforts, joining as portfolio manager. He was previously at Putnam Investments, which he joined in 1999. Before that he worked at Merrill Lynch where he spent four years in the Latin America investment banking group.

The three other hires were: Matthew Culley as assistant portfolio manager and research analyst, and Matthew Doody and Peter Li as research analysts. All three were previously at Putnam Investments. Like Graña, Culley and Doody are based in Boston, while Li is based in Singapore. The analysts will collaborate with the investment and research teams across the firm’s investment platform, reporting into and as part of the central research team.

The appointments follow the departure of Glen Finegan, head of emerging markets, and four of his team. Their departures were announced in April and they will officially leave Janus Henderson on 30 November 2019.

Janus Henderson is currently under review by London CIV, the asset pooling company set up by the UK capital’s public sector pension schemes, following the departure of Finegan and his team. The company was appointed to run an emerging markets mandate in 2017.

UBS Asset Management – Ulrich Koerner, head of the Swiss group’s €682bn asset management business and president for the EMEA region, is stepping down from these roles, it was announced today. Suni Harford, currently head of investments for UBS Asset Management, will replace him as president of the division, while Sabine Keller-Busse will take on the role of president for EMEA in addition to her current role as group chief operating officer.

Harford joined UBS in 2017 in her current role after a 24-year career at Citigroup, the last nine of which she was regional head of markets for North America. The expansion of her role at UBS will see her joining the group’s executive board, becoming the second woman on the 13-strong board. 

Koerner joined the UBS group executive board more than 10 years go and was appointed head of the asset management unit in 2014. The group credited him with turning what was a fragmented multi-boutique structure into a globally integrated busness. He is to remain with UBS as a senior adviser to group CEO Sergio Ermotti until at least the end of March next year, the company said.

UBS also today announced that Martin Blessing would be stepping down as co-president of the group’s global wealth management business, to be replaced by Iqbal Khan, previously CEO of Credit Suisse’s wealth management business. 

All changes are effective 1 October.

Elo – Finland’s third largest pensions insurance company Elo has appointed Tiina Helenius as chief economist. She previously worked as chief economist at Swedish bank Handelsbanken . Elo told IPE that Helenius will join the firm in mid-September and will report to its CIO Hanna Hiidenpalo.

Alma Property Partners – Hüseyin Meric, former senior portfolio manager within global real estate and infrastructure at Danish pension provider Sampension, has been appointed head of Denmark at Swedish property investment company Alma Property Partners. He told IPE that this was a newly-created role.

UNJSPF – Rosemarie McClean has been appointed pension benefits administrator of the $64.8bn (€58bn) United Nations Joint Staff Pension Fund (UNJSPF). Most recently she was chief operating officer at Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, and before that senior vice president of member services. 

BMO Global Asset Management – Dominic Delaforce has been appointed director with responsibility for the asset manager’s UK pension fund clients. He joins from Aberdeen Standard Investments where he was the head of UK institutional client relationship management, working with UK corporate and local government pension fund clients across all asset classes. He joined Aberdeen Standard in 2005, having previously been at Deutsche Asset Management. 

Quantum Advisory – The independent financial services consultancy has hired Julian Fox as principal consultant, based in its Birmingham office. According to Quantum, Fox has more than 30 years’ experience in the pensions industry, having worked in various consulting and client relationship management roles at JLT, Aon Consulting and Sedgwick Noble Lowndes. He has also held pensions manager positions at Tarmac Group, part of listed corporate CRH, and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, a charity.

Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) – Mirjam Groten will join the GRI as chief business development officer on 1 September, responsible for services supporting organisations to disclose their environmental, social and governance performance and prepare sustainability reports. Her previous role was business development director of Fairtrade Australia & New Zealand.