Royal London Asset Management (Rlam) will not replace the head of equities role following Jane Coffey’s departure as the group reduces its active equity focus down to pan-European funds.
Last week, Investment Adviser revealed that head of equities Jane Coffey had left the group after 11 years. Her UK Equity fund was taken over by Ivor Pether, who has been involved with running equity portfolios at the company for several years.
Jonathan McClure, manager of the Japan Growth fund and Edward Chan, manager of the Far East fund, were squeezed out in January after their funds were switched from active to passive management.
Head of marketing Susan Spiller said: “We now have no active equity outside of the pan-European area.
“The change of our Japan and Far East funds from active to passive is part of why we had these discussions with Jane. There will no longer be a broad head of equities.”
Ms Spiller said Rlam had found it “very difficult to compete” with one fund manager in the Japan and Far East regions, when rival fund groups had bigger teams and offices on the ground.
“We had two good managers but were trying to compete with groups of 10 or 20 when we didn’t have the resources in the region,” she said.
Equity managers will now report to chief investment officer Robert Talbut.
Ms Spiller insisted the group “was committed to active management,”with no further plans to switch any more funds to passive.
