Fund Times: November 29–December 3

MacMillan departs BGF European Value, Ignis merges multi-manager teams, Threadneedle launches a new UK fund and AXA Rosenberg appoints a new CEO

Chetan Modi 3 December, 2010 | 2:27PM
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MacMillan Departs BGF European Value
James MacMillan has relinquished his role as manager of BGF European Value and will be moving to a new role within BlackRock. The fund will now be managed by Brian Hall, who joined the firm in 2007 as an analyst and is a member of BlackRock’s European Equity Style Diversified team. Hall is responsible for research coverage of the industrials sector and was previously at Lehman Brothers for eight years where he was a director of equity research on the European capital goods team. Brian Hall will work under the supervision of Nigel Bolton, Head of the European Equity Style Diversified team at BlackRock.

Multi-manager Teams at Ignis to Merge
Ignis is merging its fund of real estate, fund of private equity, fund of hedge fund and retail multi-manager capabilities into a single business unit called Ignis Advisers; the combined entity held £2.4 billion in assets at the end of October 2010. The firm has hired Michiel Timmerman as Managing Director and Chief Investment Officer of the newly-formed Ignis Advisers. Timmerman joins Ignis from Aberdeen Asset Management where he was chief investment officer of the former RBS Asset Management fund of hedge fund, private equity and long-only multi-manager businesses; Aberdeen Asset Management acquired those businesses from Royal Bank of Scotland in February 2010. Timmerman was also a co-founder of Coutts’ fund of hedge fund business, which was acquired by RBS in 2004.  

AXA Rosenberg Appoints New CEO
AXA Rosenberg has appointed Jeremy Baskin to the firm’s board with immediate effect and he will become CEO, succeeding Stephane Prunet on January 1, 2011. Baskin joins after spending 22 years at Northern Trust, where he was Senior Vice President and Head of Active Equity management; he was also responsible for the global passive business as well as building the research and investment infrastructure for their quantitative equity strategies. At Northern Trust Baskin also led the global and quantitative portfolio management and research team, which managed around $24 billion. Prunet will remain at AXA Rosenberg as an adviser to Dominique Carrel-Billard, who is CEO of AXA Investment Managers. Elsewhere, Will Jump is the new Americas CIO and replaces Bill Rick who is retiring after 20 years at AXA Rosenberg. Furthermore, Anna Chefter has been appointed as AXA Rosenberg’s Chief Risk Officer; she previously held the same role at Fortress Drawbridge Liquid Markets and First Quadrant.    

Threadneedle Launches New UK Fund
Threadneedle has launched their new UK Extended Alpha fund which will be managed by Simon Haines and Chris Kinder. The managers will use UCITS III powers to run the fund as a 150/50 strategy and its net exposure to the market will remain between 90%-105%. The fund will be benchmarked against the FTSE All Share index and the management duo intends to run the portfolio with 40-50 long positions and 20-25 short positions. Simon Haines is also in charge of the Threadneedle Mid 250 fund, while Chris Kinder joined Threadneedle earlier this year and is co-manager of Threadneedle UK Absolute Alpha, which was launched in September 2010.

The information contained within is for educational and informational purposes ONLY. It is not intended nor should it be considered an invitation or inducement to buy or sell a security or securities noted within nor should it be viewed as a communication intended to persuade or incite you to buy or sell security or securities noted within. Any commentary provided is the opinion of the author and should not be considered a personalised recommendation. The information contained within should not be a person's sole basis for making an investment decision. Please contact your financial professional before making an investment decision.

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Chetan Modi  is a fund analyst at Morningstar OBSR.

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