van Eyk has promoted Nigel Douglas to the role filled until recently between Suzanne Tavill and Jerome Lander.
Douglas has become head of investment research after joining van Eyk in 2001 and serving as investment strategist since 2004. van Eyk director Mark Thomas said Douglas would not be directly replaced in the strategist role, because over the last six months the firm has broadened its strategic inputs. They now include Andrew Hunt, a London-based consultant on global liquidity, and Damien Hennessy of Heuristics Investment Systems, an Australian provider of front office portfolio management systems and investment decision support systems. Off the back of its 18 month-old currency trading relationship with Goldman Sachs JBWere, van Eyk also has access to the macroeconomic analysis of the team lead by that shop’s chief economist, Tim Toohey. Thomas said Douglas would continue to provide tactical asset allocation advice to van Eyk’s Blueprint range of multimanager funds, but that the promotion would give him more time to lead the manager research effort.
Future Fund chief investment officer Ben Samild said that FY24 has been a great year for alpha creation, thanks to strong returns in equities and, unusually, across multiple hedge fund strategies all at the same time. He reflected the past few years have been “a difficult time to be an asset owner and to generate positive returns for risk assets” but the Future Fund is tracking well of its long-term mandate.
Simon Hoyle and Darcy SongSeptember 4, 2024
