Grant Samuel Funds Management, Australia’s latest multi-affiliate manager, has signed its first distribution deal with an international manager.

Grant Samuel Funds Management, the funds management offspring from the Grant Samuel investment bank and valuation firm, has become the Australian distributor for Epoch Investment Partners of the US. Epoch, a publicly listed firm formed only in 2004, has about $US6.4 billion under management. Its range of products include global absolute returns funds, a global best-ideas fund, global small cap and global equity ‘shareholder yield’ fund. It also has some US value funds. Epoch’s chief executive and chief investment officer is Bill Priest, who was chief executive for the Americas for Credit Suisse Asset Management, before a two-year sting with a boutique, Steinberg, Priest & Sloane. He is well known for articles and a book on the importance of free cashflow and shareholder yield. Grant Samuel’s funds management business was set up in July by Andrew McKinnon, the former Australian chief executive of Credit Suisse Asset Management and a former director of County Investment Management. McKinnon has also announced the recruitment of a head of retail distribution for the firm: Damien McIntyre, who joins from Mirvac Aqua. McIntyre has also held senior positions at Merrill Lynch and Next Financial. Grant Samuel intends to incubate local funds management firms which it will also represent in the market and provide backoffice support.