GLOBAL - Syntrus Achmea, Fidelity Worldwide Investment, F&C Management, Mercer, Towers Watson

Syntrus Achmea - Wim Barentsen joined Syntrus Achmea on 1 September as chief strategist, where he is responsible for the economic vision of the firm. Barentsen was more recently with APG, where he held the same position, and was replaced by Donui Agbokou. His appointment at Syntrus Achmea is part of the company’s plan to further strengthen its investment department.

Fidelity Worldwide Investment - The firm has hired James Bateman as portfolio manager. Bateman, who is expected to start his new role in January, will lead the existing team of three portfolio managers and spearhead the development of the manager selection process for global equity products managed in London. Bateman is currently vice-president of multi-manager and fund research atBarclays Wealth. He is responsible for five multi-manager funds comprising assets of £2.3bn and sole fund researcher for a further 40 third party funds.

F&C Management - Sam Cosh has been appointed by F&C Management as lead investment manager. Cosh, who was previously director of European equities, has been co-managing the company’s investment portfolio since the second half of 2010, supported by the rest of the F&C European equity team.

Mercer - Mercer has appointed Aled Jones as a consultant in its responsible investment (RI) team. Jones will be providing Mercer’s clients with a range of services including manager research, stewardship and RI strategy formulation and implementation, and will be involved in a range of business development activities to support the firm’s RI team. Prior to joining Mercer, Jones worked for the London Pension Fund Authority (LPFA) where he had sole responsibility over the investment team’s responsible investment strategy. At the LPFA, he aligned investment policies with ESG best practice, monitored outsourced investment managers against ESG criteria and generated support for responsible investment activities.

Towers Watson - Richard Tan and Agnes Lee have joined the consultancy firm’ private markets manager research team in Hong Kong. Tan joins from Squadron Capital, a private equity fund of funds manager in Hong Kong, where he was an investment director, while Lee joins from Navis Capital Partners, where she was also an investment director. These appointments follow the recent addition of Peter Lewis to Towers Watson’s private markets team in the US. Lewis joined in early September to head the company’s US real estate research team.

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