The new managing director of Australia/New Zealand for Colonial First State Global Asset Management (CFS GAM), Joanna Davison, has overseen a restructure in which the head of business development has departed as the region aligns itself with the manager’s other territories.

Tony McFadyen left earlier this month after a little over two years with CFS GAM.

Matt Russell has moved from his previous position as head of institutional business to a role running consultant relationships and the attraction of new clients, while fellow BDM Jeremy Edmonds takes on the job of running CFS GAM’s ‘internal’ client relationships, which include CommInsure, Colonial First State, Auckland Savings Bank and the bank’s corporate super fund.

Institutional sales manager Liz Krajewski has been promoted to take on responsibility for external client relationship management, including how those relationships could be grown.

On that front, Davison expected global fixed interest and credit to be a major focus for CFS GAM, partly because of good recent relative performance, the growing popularity of conservative post-retirement strategies within super funds, and governments’ increasing issuance of bonds.

“But you need people who’ve managed through at least a couple of cycles, and in [co-heads of global fixed interest and credit] Warren Bird and Tony Adams, we’ve got that,” said Davison, who herself was managing UK equities in London for Prudential during the 1987 crash.

Davison, who joined CFS GAM six weeks ago after being retrenched from running institutional client service at Russell, has just gotten one more familiar face at 52 Martin Place. Former Russell business development manager, Laird Abernethy, was let go at the same time as Davison but has resurfaced as head of sales for Colonial First State’s alliance partners.

Meanwhile, there was more good news for displaced BDMs last week, when John Hamer became executive director for new institutional business at Pengana Capital, only a few weeks after departing Nicholas Applegate Capital Management when it shut down its Australian presence.