Emerging markets manager Lloyd George looks set to lose most of its roughly $500 million under management in Australia, after its most supportive consultant recommended clients reassign mandates in the wake of three key staff departures.
In April, the manager’s founder Robert Lloyd George informed consultants that Jacob Rees-Mogg and Edward Robertson, co-managers of the emerging markets capability, had left to form a boutique and taken analyst Dominic Johnson with them. Clients of Frontier Investment Consulting have been the most exposed in Australia to Lloyd George, with AustralianSuper, Cbus, HESTA and Vision Super among those with sizeable mandates. Frontier’s managing director, Fiona Trafford-Walker, said the firm was “;very concerned about the staff changes”; at Lloyd George and had recommended clients move any allocations to another emerging markets manager. The boutique being formed by Rees-Mogg and Robertson is not among those alternatives, as Trafford-Walker understood it had not been established yet. “;We’ve stuck to the six or eight managers that are already reviewed and rated,”; Trafford Walker said. Cbus chief executive Sandy Grant said the fund was in the process of reassigning its $100 million-plus mandate with Lloyd George, but no final decision had yet been made. Lloyd George promoted Mark Asquith, its Latin Americas specialist, and Timothy Hay, who managed a Siberian fund, to take over from the senior departees.
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