ipac senior quant heads for Whiter pastures

The investment management team of Axa-owned ipac will soon lose its quantitative analyst to institutional boutique White Funds Management.

Peter Borkovec will exit the $15 billion multimanager to join White FM early next year. His role there will focus on the institutional boutique’s interest-bearing securities portfolio, including high-yield debt, according to White FM managing director Angus Gluskie. “Peter has a good overview of analytical techniques…We’re looking to put him onto the high-yield side of the portfolio,” Gluskie said. This section of the White FM business includes ‘non-vanilla’ debt securities, listed property trusts, debt hybrids and enhanced cash investments, Gluskie said. The strategy is Australia-focused. “We’re looking for strong numerical skills,” Gluskie added. Borkovec is ipac’s only full-time quantitative analyst. However an ipac spokesperson said the manager’s investment team held sufficient resources to cover Borkovec’s position until a replacement is found. “We’ve got options being pursued,” the spokesperson said. In addition to its interest-bearing securities portfolio, White FM also manages Australian shares and listed Australian property strategies. The $500 million boutique, which presents itself as a ‘style-neutral, earnings and valuation-based manager’, was originally established as an associate part of an insurance company, emerging as a separate entity in 1992. “We were managing funds in different directions. We wanted to create a centralised structure to do work with key clients,” Gluskie said. The manager runs two listed investment companies, Whitefield and Sylvastate, founded in 1923 and 1924 respectively, in addition to the $35 million Great Southern Superannuation Fund, which will soon be wound up. For more than 100 years the manager has internally carried out investment administration, an operation which has spawned a separate company, White Funds Outsourcing. The administrator provides backoffice solutions for a number of boutiques. Gluskie added that the manager was hoping to recruit another two Australian equities analysts within the next 12 months.