Deutsche Insurance Asset Management has left one man standing in Invesco Australia’s Melbourne-based fixed income team after poaching three men to its fixed income operations within the global insurance asset manager.
Invesco Australia’s head of fixed income, Chris Siniakov, will join the Deutsche Insurance global fixed income team in July, while his former Invesco colleagues, Andrew Canobi and Steve Sutcliffe joined as portfolio manager and analyst respectively last week, according to a Deutsche bank spokesperson. They will report to Deutsche’s head of asset management Chris Larsen in Australia, and to New York-based global head Randy Brown. The German bank declined to comment further on motivations for hiring the team, apart from confirming the hires were completely separate from last year’s June sale of Deutsche Asset Management’s Australian fixed interest capabilities to Aberdeen Asset Management as they are made under the insurance asset management business. Invesco head of credit, Tony Edwards, who was part of the four-man team at Invesco, will continue to make credit-related decisions for the Invesco wholesale Australian fixed interest fund, according to chief executive Mick O’Brien. Interim responsibility for the portfolio has been handed to Invesco’s London-head of global bonds, Lachlan Callander, an Australian who headed the fixed interest fund prior to his appointment in London in April last year, O’Brien said. Invesco appointed Sinikov – who had been with the manager since 1995 – head of fixed income following Callander’s move. However, Callander was still in charge after moving to London. The fund has returned 5.34 per cent per annum for the last seven years, according to Morningstar tables. “Our fixed interest team was part of our global group – that is about 120 investment professionals worldwide. [The fixed interest team] already reported to Lachlan… So it’s a little bit easier to accommodate their move,” O’Brien said. O’Brien said the outcome was actually closer to where Invesco saw fixed interest going in the future. “We see the future of fixed interest in a global portfolio, even if it’s benchmarked to an Australian portfolio.” He suggested the closure of the Australian arm of fixed interest manager Lehman Brothers Asset Management last week was a reflection of similar thought among other managers. The portfolio would also receive assistance from the head of multi-asset classes Jackson Leung in terms of cash management and some of implementation responsibilities. “I feel reasonably comfortable we’ve got it covered,” O’Brien said. In other news, Invesco Australia appointed Robert Adès head of operations and finance, to start next Monday. Adès has effectively replaced Andreas Kabel, who left a few months ago, although the new position has been “tweaked” to include some different responsibilities such as “planning and projects”, according to an Invesco spokesperson. The global manager also celebrated 20 years of its small cap fund continuously running in March this year. Headed by Cynthia Jenkins, O’Brien said it’s an exciting story for the manager given it’s one of the longest continually managed funds in the Australian market, with a strong performance record to match. To end of March 2008, the fund has returned 16.6 per annum per annum, or 8 per cent per annum above its benchmark.
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
