It’s been yet another week with Greece dominating the headlines, after the country’s negotiations with its creditors hit a fresh deadlock, it announced a referendum on whether to accept austerity, imposed capital controls and missed a payment to the IMF.
The Greece story is pretty hard to get away from and has been causing upheaval in the markets for months, but the week has also seen a number of groups add to their investment teams and new funds from the likes of Old Mutual Global Investors.
So you don’t have to trawl through a week of news stories, FE Trustnet has rounded up five investment headlines from the past seven days.
Standards Life adds to GARS team
Standard Life Investments has appointed Gerry Fowler as investment director for idea generation within the team that manages its successful Global Absolute Return Strategies (GARS) fund.
Fowler joins the asset management house from BNP Paribas, where he was global head of equity and derivatives strategy. At Standard Life he will become part of the 57-strong multi-asset investment (MAI) team and will report to multi-asset and macro investing executive director Guy Stern.
Performance of fund vs sector and index since launch
Source: FE Analytics
Stern said: “Gerry is a highly skilled strategic analyst with a wealth of experience in equities and equity derivatives and will add to the already impressive range of knowledge and experience within the MAI team. Our absolute return and multi-asset mandates draw on a range of sophisticated investment strategies investing across all asset classes. I’ve no doubt that Gerry’s depth of knowledge will add to our research capability and idea generation for our whole offering.”
“Over the last 18 months we have launched four new multi-asset products, the team is well resourced and we have excellent collaboration across all the fund management teams globally supporting the long-term performance of our funds. We constantly strive to provide investors with the best possible solutions and that means having the right people in place to help understand and meet investors’ needs and expectations.”
OMGI eyes Global Equity Income launch for Heslop
Old Mutual Global Investors (OMGI) plans to launch an offshore Old Mutual Global Equity Income fund over the summer, to be managed by Ian Heslop, Amadeo Alentorn and Mike Servent.
The Dublin-domiciled portfolio will aim to deliver a total return by targeting dividend yield and capital growth through a highly diversified global equity portfolio. It targets a monthly income that is 30 per cent above the MSCI All Countries World index.
Heslop, Alentorn and Servent’s process continuously monitors the whole market in order to capture value across the broadest spectrum of larger-capitalisation stocks. This leads to a portfolio that is much more diversified that the typical concentrated global fund.
Head of global equities Heslop said: “We believe that our unique approach to stock selection realises the appeal of being invested in a truly diversified fund.”
“Unlike some of our peers who remain heavily weighted towards certain sectors, we are able to seek out compelling investment opportunities wherever these exist globally, irrespective of sector, country or region.”
The team uses the same process on the Old Mutual Global Equity, Old Mutual Global Equity Absolute Return and the Old Mutual North American Equity funds but has expanded it to include an income strategy on the back of client demand.
Performance of fund vs sector and index since launch
Source: FE Analytics
OMGI head of global distribution Warren Tonkinson said: “From talking to investors it is very apparent that income generating strategies continue to be in demand and we have received a number of client requests for our highly respected, award-winning global equities team to launch a global equity income strategy. The investment performance track record this team, which consists of Ian, Amadeo and Mike, has delivered for investors in their current funds is outstanding.”
Invesco Perpetual hires three for Causer and Read’s bond team
Invesco Perpetual has bolstered its fixed income team, which is headed by Paul Causer and Paul Read, by hiring three investment professionals.
Gareth Dunsmore has joined the team as a senior dealer. He was most recently at Santander as a trader, specialising in sterling and euro corporate bonds, and prior to this spent time at RBS and Paternoster.
Jessica Svantesson has been appointed as a technology, media & telecommunications and infrastructure credit analyst. She started her career as an analyst at Bloomberg LP, working in various teams between 2006 and 2011, before moving to Moody’s Investors Service as an associate analyst.
Mark McDonnell will be a macro analyst in the team, having previously been at HM Treasury as an economist working on monetary policy, international economics, fiscal policy, oil & gas taxation and the UK’s household sector.
Causer, co-head of fixed interest at Invesco Perpetual, said: “We have a market-leading fixed interest team in the UK that continues to grow and focus on delivering good long-term returns for our clients. These appointments reflect the fact that, alongside developing the talent within our team, we continue to attract the best in the industry.”
Hector Sants appointed Julius Baer chair
Julius Baer has announced that former Financial Services Authority (FSA) head Sir Hector Sants has been appointed as its new chairman.
Current chairman Gian Rossi stepped down on 1 July after nine years in the role but will remain active in the group’s business in the UK.
Sants was the FSA’s chief executive between 2007 and 2012 and became head of compliance and government and regulatory relations at Barclays at the start of 2013. However he took stress-related sick leave later in the year and resigned from the group in November 2013.
Since leaving Barclays, he has been chairing the Archbishop of Canterbury's taskforce on promoting responsible savings and credit, as well as advising the Abu Dhabi Global Market finance centre.
Rossi said: “It is a great honour to welcome Sir Hector to Julius Baer.”
“With his appointment we continue to demonstrate our ongoing commitment to the UK, and I am sure that we will benefit greatly from his long-standing experience in the financial services industry.”
S&P: Eurozone economy at “tipping point”
Credit ratings agency Standard & Poor’s presented a mixed view of the eurozone in its quarterly economic update, highlight a number of positive trends that could be undone by the ongoing Greek crisis.
The group has seen confirmation of two positive trends in the eurozone. The first is that financial markets look positively on the European Central Bank’s quantitative easing programme with equities surging, the euro remaining weak and banks increasing their lending to the private sector.
Meanwhile, the eurozone economy grew by 0.4 per cent in the first quarter of 2015 – one of the region’s strongest quarterly expansions in five years and driven by improving confidence among consumers.
But against these positive is the ongoing negotiations between Greece and its creditors, which threaten to force the country out of the eurozone. Although contagion would be low, the event would still prompt risk aversion among investors, lenders and consumers, thereby hampering the recovery.
Jean-Michel Six, chief economist for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, said: “On one hand, for the second time in a row, Standard & Poor's quarterly economic update incorporates upward revisions in growth projections for most countries. On the other hand, we recognise that the resolution of the Greek crisis remains highly uncertain.”
