AMP Capital CIO global equities and fixed income, Mark Beardow, has been the major casualty in the fund manager’s latest round of leader reassignments.
The changes announced last week that saw Beardow exit the firm after almost 20 years service also spilled over to the NZ business where local chief, Grant Hassell, relinquished his co-head of NZ fixed income duties, devolving full control of the portfolio to Vicky Hyde-Smith.
Hassell said Hyde-Smith, promoted to the co-head of fixed income role last June, was more than capable of taking on sole responsibility for the portfolio.
However, Hassell would retain oversight of all NZ asset teams after taking on the CIO role across the local business in addition to his managing director duties.
Across the Tasman, the departure of Beardow – who Hassell reported to – has seen Simon Warner, head of global fixed income, and David Allen, global head of equities, promoted to CIO positions in their respective asset classes. Both Warner and Allen now report directly to AMP Capital chief, Adam Tindall.
Following the top-level reshuffle, Craig Keary, AMP Capital director of Australia and NZ, has also been handed responsibility for the entire Asia-Pacific region. Keary would relocate from Sydney to Asia in the “coming months”, AMP said in a statement, as current Hong Kong-based director in the region, Anthony Fasso, returns to Melbourne.
Fasso would retain his position as global head of portfolio strategy and place on the AMP Capital leadership team back in Melbourne with a focus on “targeted mergers and acquisitions”.
In a statement, Tindall said the executive changes would help AMP Capital develop into a “pre-eminent global fund manager”.
“Like any business, we need to continue to evolve our strategy to ensure we’re delivering for our clients,” he said in the release.
The departing Beardow, joined AMP Capital in 1998, assuming the global equities and fixed income CIO job in January 2014. Last September, he presided over an earlier restructure that saw the heads of global listed infrastructure, Tim Humphreys, and credit and core, David Carruthers, axed.
At the time Beardow said: “Combined, these changes support our 2020 strategy across the global equities and fixed income teams.
“The strategy is about helping our clients meet their investment goals with more confidence, through generating differentiated sources of investment return, while also delivering more value.”