A former BT Financial executive has joined Russell Investments’ corporate super team as it prepares to roll out a new service for its large superannuation clients.

Geoff Peck started at Russell yesterday as director, superannuation investments, having spent 12 years at BT Financial Group where he was most recently BT’s head of superannuation solutions.

Glenn Smith, also director, superannuation investments at Russell said he would be working with Peck to develop and roll out Russell’s Australian Client Portfolio Management service – a new range of services for larger super fund clients.

The service will seek to implement strategic tilting across client portfolios and employ more sophisticated portfolio rebalancing activities. It will also deliver new ways for clients to access alternative assets.

“We have a number of fairly large clients interested in the development of the implemented consulting approach,” Smith said.

“The plan is that I work with Geoff over the next little while to roll that out as an option to a number of our larger clients. It adds a bit of flexibility to the offering; importantly it introduces another skill set into the mix which is the client portfolio manager – that’s somebody who will actually be overseeing the client’s portfolio on a day to day, week to week basis.”

Smith said the service would be most appropriate for super funds with at least $1 billion in assets under management.

“We see that adding this other dimension will allow [clients] to access some skills and also some services that are not available under the current governance structure,” he added.

“In the short term I see Geoff’s assistance in the development as being critical. It’s really good to get a second set of eyes, a different background, someone who’s got a real client focus and a long history of that to assist and then we will roll out as required.”

Peck joins a 28-strong team, including five
investment professionals, headed up by Linda Elkins, managing director of
Russell’s superannuation business.