Nikko Asset Management has refreshed its board following the departure of managing director, George Carter, at the end of March after more than seven years in charge.
Carter formally relinquished his board seat as at April 1 with Nikko global chief risk officer, Ryu Kiyotaka, also stepping down as director of the NZ entity on the same date.
Tokyo-based Nikko representatives, Yutaka Nishida, and Tony Glover – group executive chair and global head of international sales, respectively – have now joined the NZ company board along with new managing director, Stuart Williams.
Nishida has served more than 40 years within companies in the parent entity, Sumitomo Mitsui, while Glover joined Nikko in 2020 from BNP Paribas Asset Management Japan to drive global sales.
Glover is responsible for all Nikko global sales bar the Japan retail market as well as managing the firm’s investment consultant relationships.
Tracey Jones, independent chair of the NZ board, said the appointment of the high-powered pair would provide a “direct line into the heart of the Nikko AM Group” to bolster the local growth strategy.
The NZ Nikko business is largely known as an institutional manager but Williams said the new global directors would support wider growth plans for the business “particularly in the retail investment and KiwiSaver markets”.
“Nishida-san is known to be passionate about fund managers being good custodians of investor money,” he said in a release. “This is a philosophy that permeates through our approach to active funds management, and one that will serve us well as we work closely with our global business to drive growth here in New Zealand.”
Nikko NZ has over $7.6 billion under management, mostly through institutional and wholesale clients. Launched in 2018, the Nikko KiwiSaver scheme, however, has struggled to gain much traction, reporting about $55 million under management at the end of March including $16 million in the stand-alone Ark Disruptive Innovation Fund, which provided a bump to scheme numbers when it opened to members in 2021.
The Ark fund returned more than 100 per cent in 2020, sparking rapid growth but performance has suffered since. Morningstar figures show the Nikko version of the flagship Ark fund is down about 25 per cent over the 12 months to the end of March this year (in US dollar terms) despite a positive returning more than 4 per cent in the first quarter of 2023.
During the 2022 calendar year, the Nikko NZ Ark fund fell over 63 per cent.
Nikko, which owns about 15 per cent of Ark, manages more than US$200 billion globally.