Threadneedle needs to stem the flow of top talent

After graduating from Durham University in 2008 Mr Brazier joined Schroders, where he built up a good name with solid returns on UK equity funds.

He switched to Threadneedle in early 2010, taking over the group’s now-£2bn UK fund. Since then, the fund has gained 63.3 per cent, solidly better than the FTSE All-Share index’s 49.1 per cent return, according to FE Analytics.

To paraphrase Oscar Wilde: to lose one fund management team may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose two looks like carelessness. John Kenchington

In his first few months on the fund, Mr Brazier started to outpace the market gradually, before performance fell back when markets panicked over the eurozone crisis in the autumn of 2011. However, when those fears subsided the fund returned to gradual outperformance of the wider stockmarket for the following three years.

This episode reflected the manager’s careful focus on buying high-quality, well-managed companies with strong balance sheets.

It’s exactly the kind of approach that professional fund buyers love because it’s founded on good, solid groundwork based on tangible ideas.

FundCalibre, the recently launched fund ratings service, identified Mr Brazier as one of the top picks in the sector based on alpha consistency, suggesting he is more likely to deliver ongoing outperformance than his peers.

Perhaps worryingly for Threadneedle fans, Mr Brazier and team are not the first en masse exit seen at the firm in the past few years after it lost US equity manager Cormac Weldon and team earlier this year.

To paraphrase Oscar Wilde: to lose one fund management team may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose two looks like carelessness.

The firm also lost emerging market debt manager Richard House and some members in 2012, while global equity star Jeremy Podger, government bond specialist Quentin Fitzsimmons and US team members Andrew Holliman and Richard Wilson have also headed for the exit in the past few years.

At a firm the size of Threadneedle you are bound to get turnover, but the sheer number of significant names leaving here would seem to raise questions.

Is Threadneedle paying its fund managers enough? Are they sufficiently locked in? Is there some wider agenda at the group’s US owner Ameriprise Financial, to do with future synergies between management at Threadneedle and other teams in its stable?

Either way, I would advise Threadneedle to do whatever it takes to cling on to Leigh Harrison, Richard Colwell, Stephen Thornber, Jim Cielinski, Don Jordison et al from now on to avoid tough questions from intermediaries.

As for Investec Asset Management, which has hired Mr Brazier and Co., the addition of a heavyweight team in a core area looks to instantly boost its credibility.

John Kenchington is editor of Investment Adviser