ANZ Investments has promoted recent hire, Daria Murray, from an analyst role to take on full-blown portfolio management duties.
UK import Murray joined ANZ as an equity analyst last August after a brief turn as Australasian shares portfolio manager at the New Zealand Superannuation Fund (NZS).
According to an ANZ spokesperson, Murray has now taken over from the group’s head of equities, Mark Brown, as portfolio manager of the more than $780 million Australasian Shares Fund.
Brown relinquished day-to-day control of the fund to focus on supervisory, management and administrative functions, the ANZ spokesperson said.
However, Brown retains the head of equities title.
Craig Tyson and Craig Brown remain as portfolio managers for ANZ’s Australasian listed property, and New Zealand equities, respectively, with John Middleton also keeping his position as head of Australasian equity research.
At the same time, ANZ has eased back on plans to expand its Auckland-based investment business across the Tasman. According to the ANZ spokesperson, the two Sydney-based equity analysts no longer report through to Auckland as previously announced.
The group’s intentions to hire a Sydney-based portfolio manager have also been put on ice.
Prior to joining the NZS, Murray spent five years as a buy-side analyst with the London arm of AllianceBernstein (now known as AB) after an earlier three-year equity research role for JP Morgan UK.
Excluding the NZS and the Accident Compensation Corporation, ANZ Investments is New Zealand’s largest funds entity with more than $22 billion under management, including about $8 billion sourced from the bank’s three KiwiSaver schemes.