FTAdviser understands that the departures have come after internal changes to the management of the asset manager's Cirilium portfolio range.
As part of the changes, Ian Jensen-Humphreys and Sacha Chorley will take over the management of the £7bn Cirilium portfolio range.
The pair currently manage the Cirilium blend portfolios.
Craig and Patel, who previously ran the range, as well as Knight, head of investment proposition, will all leave the firm.
Craig, who has been a portfolio manager at Quilter for eight years, will stay with the business until the second quarter next year to ensure a smooth transition.
Internal changes
As part of the changes, Quilter Investors is bringing a number of functions in-house.
This includes the fund manager selection which was previously done by Quilter Cheviot, alongside an expansion of the research team, which is split into a manager selection team, an operational due diligence team, and a responsible investment team.
Quilter Investors has hired Given Chanetsa-Mazarura as head of operational due diligence, who will start in January 2023.
The changes have been announced by Marcus Brookes, chief investment officer at Quilter Investors, who joined the company six months ago.
He joined from Schroders Personal Wealth, where he was CIO for 3 years, and previously spent 11 years at its parents company, Schroders, as head of multi-manager.
Brookes told FTAdviser the changes are a result of his desire to get closer to the client, run a more successful portfolio range, and increase transparency with IFAs and their clients.
Multi-asset is the way forward and that is why we have structured our business around it. Marcus Brookes, QuilterBrookes cites the spectre of the unnamed “high profile” fund managers who have “tripped themselves up” in the past because there was not appropriate oversight which hangs over the industry.
“We want to make sure we avoid those pitfalls," he said.
“We are taking greater responsibility, investing our money at a time when most people are worrying about what’s going to happen in 2023,” Brookes said.
He added throughout his career he has seen how easy it can be to blame others and make excuses when funds do not perform the way they are expected to.
“I think part of being a CIO is removing these excuses, and the best way to do this is to ensure you own the investment process, and everyone within that process understands their role,” he said.
“If I can create the right environment, where great investment ideas are being pushed, researched properly, and assessed efficiently, our probability of winning goes through the roof.
“And if we get it wrong, it is no one's fault other than ourselves.”
Market research
Quilter Investors undertook a year of client research to work out what changes needed to be made.
The outcome was the awareness that, although customers do not walk into an IFA’s office and ask for a top quartile fund, that is the way the industry has been designed.
Brookes implicated himself in that very process during his time running money in his earlier career, but said that needs to change, especially given the approaching consumer duty.
“If you are going to be truly customer aligned, you really need to be trying to solve the customer’s problems, not asset management problems,” he said.
“What we are trying to do as a business is develop a really good advice process that identifies [the customer’s] problems, and unifies that advice process with an investment process that matches it.”
Looking ahead to the next year, Brookes said the cost of living crisis and recession ahead is “not an immediate concern” for fund flows.
“This is partly because most advice processes establish a minimum amounts of cash people need to put aside for rainy-day events…this is a rainy day event.”
The broad range of assets that make up multi-asset funds are key to diversifying risk in times of economic uncertainty.
“By having another set of assets [in addition to equities and bonds] to diversify the client risk…the higher the chances you have of doing well.
“Multi-asset is the way forward and that is why we have structured our business around it.”
sally.hickey@ft.com
