BlackRockDec 24 2018

Blackrock trust sees manager exit

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Blackrock trust sees manager exit
Credit: Wolfgang Rattay/Reuters

The portfolio manager of the Blackrock Latin American investment trust, Will Landers, will step down along with two analysts based in Sao Paulo.

In a note to the stock exchange this morning (December 24) Blackrock said it has proposed Sam Vecht, managing director of the Global Emerging Markets equities team, as a new portfolio manager with immediate effect alongside Ed Kuczma, a Latin America specialist on the same team.

Mr Landers had been with the company since March 2006 and will leave on March 17, 2019 but the trust has not explained why.

Mr Kuczma joined Blackrock in 2015 as a senior research analyst on the Latin American equity team from Morgan Stanley Investment Management, where he covered emerging market equities with a primary focus on Latin America.

He has 15 years of investment experience across all sectors and countries in Latin America.

Meanwhile Mr Vecht joined Merrill Lynch Investment Managers, which merged with Blackrock in 2006, in 2000 and has managed a number of UK investment trusts since 2004.

He has been portfolio manager for the Blackrock Emerging Markets Equity Strategies fund since September 2015, and the Blackrock Frontiers investment trust since 2010, both of which have invested in the Latin American region since launch.

The proposed management arrangements will be subject to formal board review in 2019. 

carmen.reichman@ft.com