Aberdeen Asset Management will not retain any of Deutsche Asset Management’s (DeAM) five-person large cap Australian equities team under Stuart Jordan, who along with head of institutional business Ken Licence has taken a redundancy, according to information gleaned from researchers.
In the lead-up to Aberdeen taking control of DeAM’s Australian equity and fixed income businesses on June 1, the manager was provided a list of relevant DeAM executives from which it has since selected those it wishes to employ. Aberdeen will definitely employ DeAM’s fixed interest team under Bill Bovingdon, but is also understood to be retaining the small cap team under Sinclair Currie, consultant relations executive Simon Wills, and some operations staff. Both head of Australian equities, Stuart Jordan, and long-serving head of institutional business Ken Licence, are understood to have taken redundancy packages. It is understood that Tony Breen is among the business development executives being retained, marketing Deutsche’s remaining range of property and alternatives products to wholesale investors, reporting to recently-promoted head of distribution, Chris Larsen. Aberdeen’s Australian head, Charlie Macrae, would not comment other than to say the June 1 transfer date looked achievable at this stage.
The $34 billion Brighter Super is set to shift a significant proportion of equities assets in MySuper from passive to active management. Chief investment officer Mark Rider says the move is possible because of the scale created by mergers, and the fund will be looking to its newly appointed active managers to generate performance through the cycle by taking idiosyncratic risks.
Darcy SongJanuary 21, 2025
