Watson Wyatt Investment Consulting (WWIC) has gone part of the way to replacing former director of investment manager research, Sean Henaghan, who moved to AMP’s Future Directions Fund in February.
Head of WWIC, David Neal, said most of Henaghan’s responsibilities would be taken by two “;mid-level”; consultants of around 6-8 years’ experience. The first of these Gignasa Patel, whom WWIC has this week hired away from Lonsec’s Australian equity manager research team, to become a senior member of its own research team specialising in Australian bond and equity managers. Prior to her stint at Lonsec, Patel spent six years researching equity and bond managers in Mercer Investment Consulting’s UK team. Neal said a new member of the client-facing consulting support team, of similar length of experience to Patel, would be hired as soon as the right person could be found.
Hostplus chief investment officer Sam Sicilia has declared that for as long as he and chief executive David Elia are overseeing the $110 billion fund, there will be no investment internalisation. However, he acknowledges that if the institutional asset manager business model comes too much under pressure, it poses risks and instability to Hostplus’ externalisation model.
Darcy SongSeptember 10, 2024
