People moves: L&G appoints Kingfisher's Courtier to lead trust

L&G Mastertrust, Kingfisher, AFM, Aon Hewitt, Actiam, Bank of England, Robeco, Schroders, Henderson, BTIG, Guggenheim, Spence Johnson, PMI

Legal & General (L&G) – Dermot Courtier, head of group pensions at Kingfisher, has been named as chairman of the £2.9bn (€3.4bn) Legal & General Mastertrust, the insurance and pensions provider’s multi-employer defined contribution (DC) offering. He will also chair L&G’s independent governance committee, the trustee board of the master trust and L&G’s other DC offerings.

Courtier will remain in his role at Kingfisher, which owns UK store chains including B&Q and Screwfix. He has helped the company’s £3.5bn defined benefit pension fund deploy a derisking strategy – including a medically underwritten buy-in with L&G last year. Kingfisher also has a £230m defined contribution scheme.

Emma Douglas, head of DC at Legal & General Investment Management, said Courtier would play a “pivotal role” at L&G. “His innovative flair in the way he thinks about investments and communications will help ensure both our offering and the way we engage continue to meet members’ and employers’ needs,” she said.

AFM – Bart Koolstra has temporarily stepped down as member of the supervisory board (RvT) of Dutch supervisory body Authority Financial Markets (AFM). He cited recent publicity about an AFM monitoring dossier on company Eriks in 2009. As a senior partner of accounting firm PwC, Koolstra was involved in the dossier at the time. Koolstra said he made his decision to avoid the impression of a conflict of interest. Recently, Dutch news daily NRC suggested that Eriks had been involved in corruption in the Middle East – its parent company declined to comment. Koolstra left PwC in 2013 and joined the AFM’s RvT in 2015.

Aon Hewitt – Tim Gardener has joined the UK consultant as a partner. He joins from AXA Investment Managers where he was global head of the institutional client group. During more than six years at AXA IM Gardener oversaw consultant relations and was involved in the establishment of the asset manager’s smart beta products. He also spent 24 years at Mercer, latterly as global CIO.

Actiam – The €60bn asset manager Actiam named Dudley Keiller as chief transformation officer (CTO) on its executive board. He will be tasked with rolling out Actiam’s new strategy focused on international growth based on responsible investmentment. Keiller joins from NN IP/ING IM, where he was subsequently global controller and CFO. As of 1 March, Actiam’s executive team is to also comprise Hans van Houwelingen (CEO) and John Shen (CRO). The asset manager is still searching for a CIO to join the executive team.

Bank of England – The Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) has been brought within the single legal entity of the Bank of England with effect from 1 March. As a result, the PRA’s most important supervisory and policy decisions will be made by a new Bank of England Prudential Regulation Committee (PRC), which replaces the PRA Board. Ben Broadbent, the deputy governor of the Bank of England, has been appointed to the PRC, and all external members of the PRA Board have been re-appointed to the PRC. The changes were made under financial reform legislation from last year.

Robeco – Peter Walsh has been named head of the Netherlands-based asset manager’s UK business. He will lead sales and marketing for Robeco’s UK office and have oversight for its operational management. He has worked at Robeco since 2014 as global head of consultant relations. Prior to joining the firm he was director of distribution at Treasury Group Limited.

Schroders – The FTSE100 listed asset manager has hired Chris Paine from Henderson Global Investors to its multi-asset team. In his new role, he joins Schroders’ global income portfolio management team and will contribute to its research, security selection, asset allocation, and portfolio construction.

BTIG – The US-based fund manager has appointed John Agnew as managing director of fixed income credit trading. He was previously senior managing director for high yield securities at Guggenheim Partners. His colleague at Guggenheim, Drew Hall, has also joined BTIG as managing director of fixed income credit sales. Finally, Evan Jones has moved from Jefferies to become BTIG’s managing director of fixed income credit strategy. The trio are based in New York.

Spence Johnson – The UK consultant has appointed Magnus Spence as chief executive. He was previously managing director, and co-founded the company in 2008. The group has also promoted Nigel Birch and Will Mayne to managing director roles. Birch was previously deputy managing director. He leads the client management team. Mayne was previously a director, and leads on the creation of “data and intelligence content”.

Pensions Management Institute – Prominent UK politician and pensions campaigner Frank Field was presented with an “outstanding contribution” award by the Pensions Management Institute this week. Field chairs the Work and Pensions Committee, a group of members of the UK parliament’s lower house. The committee was influential in the settlement of the BHS pensions case as well as contributing significantly to the government’s defined benefit reform proposals.