Perennial Investment Partners has restructured its international investment team by appointing overseas talent from JP Morgan’s UK asset management business and TIAA-CREF, a heavyweight US pension fund and financial services provider.

The restructure, which bolsters the headcount in Perennial’s global shares high alpha trust at the expense of the core international fund, was prompted by adviser and client demand for more resources to be allocated to senior portfolio manager Clay Carter, Perennial managing director Anthony Patterson said. Advisers and clients wanted more effort put into the “high alpha” approach pursued by Perennial international equities management, the firm’s international investment business, Patterson said. Carter now holds responsibility for the business’s global high alpha shares and international shares portfolios. The firm has hired James Soutter, who formerly managed the 1.9 billion pound JP Morgan Fleming Mercantile Investment Trust from a UK base, as senior portfolio manager. Soutter will be responsible for managing UK and European equities. Cleo Somers, Perennial’s equity analyst Europe, will relocate to London to assist him. Nayan Sheth will become US equities analyst for Perennial, having left the USD$400 billion TIAA-CREF company to take the position. He will be joined in the US by Perennial’s Mark Chan, who has covered US equities for the past five years. As a consequence of the restructure, three team members who worked in a “more traditional” approach within Perennial’s core international fund have been let go, Perennial said in a statement. Scott King, Alistair MacDonald and Bill Murphy will soon exit the business.