People moves: UK railways scheme completes internal property team

FCA, RPMI Railpen, Rabobank Pensioenfonds, Autoriteit Financiële Markten, TOBAM, P-Solve, Penfida, Harvest, Lazard, AXA, Legal & General, Capzanine, OMGI, ALFI Partners

Financial Conduct Authority – The UK regulator has unveiled the full membership of its new working group on institutional costs disclosure, led by Chris Sier.

It comprises asset manager, institutional investor and consumer representatives, including: Stewart Bevan, cost transparency specialist at KAS Bank; Richard Butcher, managing director at professional trustee firm PTL and incoming chair of the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association; Iain Clacher, associate professor in accounting and finance at Leeds University Business School, and Ralph Frank, head of DC at consultancy Cardano and leader of campaign group the Transparency Task Force’s costs and charges section. 

Former shadow minister of state for pensions Gregg McClymont was unveiled as deputy co-chairman of the group last week, as was Jeff Houston, head of pensions at the Local Government Association. The group has been charged with developing a new framework for standardised asset manager disclosure of costs and charges to institutional investors. The full list of members can be found here.

RPMI Railpen – The investment manager for the UK’s £27bn (€30bn) railways industry pension scheme has completed its internal property investment team with the appointments of Alastair Dawson and Richard van Lente. Dawson joins as senior property asset manager from CBRE, where he was responsible for management of Harbert Management Corporation’s industrial assets. At Railpen he will be responsible for the day to day asset management of office and industrial assets. Van Lente joins as senior property asset and development manager from Market Tech, and will be responsible for the day-to-day asset management of a number of Railpen’s retail property assets. 

Rabobank Pensioenfonds – Theo Camps has been appointed independent chairman of the €24.9bn pension fund of Rabobank, which has recently switched from a paritarian board to a one-tier board. Camps takes over from deputy chairman Antoon de Hoon, who had chaired the pension fund since 1 May 2016, when Bert Bruggink, the former chief finance and risk officer of Rabobank, stepped down.

Camps – a professor of organisational science and governance at the TIAS School for Business and Society at Tilburg University – had been executive chairman of consultancy Berenschot. He has also been supervisory chair of one of Rabobank’s regional branches and has co-chaired Rabobank’s governance committee, which unified Rabobank into a single Co-operative. 

AFM – Femke de Vries is to leave Dutch communication watchdog Autoriteit Financiële Markten (AFM) and join consultancy &samhoud as a senior partner as of 1 January. She said she wanted to broaden her experience to a more entrepreneurial role. De Vries, who joined the AFM in 2015, has been active in financial supervision for the past 15 years. Prior to her role at the AFM, she was secretary-director at supervisor De Nederlandsche Bank. De Vries is to stay on as extraordinary professor of supervision at Rijksuniversiteit Groningen.

TOBAM – The “anti-benchmark” asset manager has appointed Frédéric Jamet as head of trading and co-head of research. Jamet is based in Paris, managing TOBAM’s teams across Paris and Dublin. He is a renowned academic in the field of factor and smart beta investment, with 28 years of asset management industry experience. He joins TOBAM from State Street Global Advisors France, where he had served as head of investments for eleven years. Before that he was head of the index equity unit for State Street.

P-Solve – The fiduciary manager and investment consultant has poached Damon Hopkins from Willis Towers Watson, appointing him as associate director in its defined contribution investment consulting practice. Before Willis Towers Watson, Hopkins worked for companies including Mercer and JLT Benefits Solutions.

Lazard Asset Management London – Lisa O’Connor has joined the firm as head of consultant relations for the UK. She was previously at AXA Investment Managers for around six years, as both European head and global head of consultant relations. AXA has appointed Manisha Patel to replace O’Connor as head of global consultant relations. She was previously head of UK consultant relations. She joined AXA IM in 2004, having  previously worked at the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation as an equity researcher.

Legal & General Investment Management – Volker Kurr has been appointed head of Europe, institutional for LGIM. He has worked at the asset manager for the past four years as head of Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Sarah Aitken, head of distribution EMEA at LGIM, said his appointment would help drive the next phase of growth in institutional Europe, which includes establishing a small office in Frankfurt.

Capzanine – The French private debt manager is opening an office in Munich in an effort to capture the momentum in the European direct lending market. Bertram Schütz has been appointed to lead its business in Germany. After 20 years at HVB/UniCredit Schütz switched to Avenue Capital Group in 2007, where he set up a direct lending strategy. 

Old Mutual Global Investors – Benjamin Hügli joined the asset manager this month as sales director for the DACH region (Germany, Austria and Switzerland). He is based in OMGI’s Zurich office, having previously been head of Switzerland at Foord Asset Management.

ALFI Partners – Patrick Kern joined third party asset manager marketer ALFI Partners in late August. He will cover Austria, German-speaking Switzerland and Liechtenstein. He has previously held positions at Lazard Asset Management, REYL Asset Management, Bank Sarasin and ING Investment Management.

Penfida – The corporate finance advice firm has appointed Deborah Gudgeon as a senior adviser. She joins Penfida from Gazelle Corporate Finance, where she was a managing director and provided independent advice to some of the largest UK and multinational defined benefit schemes. Gudgeon will advise pension fund trustees on all aspects of the employer covenant, corporate transactions, scheme funding negotiations and integrated risk management. She was the founding director of the special situations advisory team at BDO and a director in the corporate finance advisory business at Deloitte.

Harvest Global Investments – The $114bn Asian specialist asset manager has made three senior appointments for its Hong Kong office. Winnie Wong is a fixed income portfolio manager at Harvest, having previously held roles at Royal Bank of Canada, Warburg Pincus, and Credit Suisse. Kathy Zhang was previously at Credit Suisse, and joins Harvest as China equity strategist. Kenn An will oversee product development at Harvest in his role as head of product. Kenn was previously head of product and marketing at UBS Asset Management in Hong Kong.