Westpac has poached Glen Macann from Kiwi Wealth to head the bank’s executive financial advice team. The bank has 50 plus authorised financial advisers (AFAs) but only the 20 senior advisers fall under has purview.
A Westpac spokesperson confirmed Macann was hired to the newly-created position of national manager wealth advisory.
He will report to the bank’s head of private wealth, Katie Christoffersen.
Macann joined Kiwi Wealth last February as head of advice after a brief stint leading the Pie Funds-owned Juno KiwiSaver scheme.
He spent about a month as head of Juno before decamping to Kiwi Wealth, which at the time reported a team of about 15 authorised financial advisers (AFAs). The Kiwi Wealth website currently lists nine AFAs in its national team.
Prior to his fleeting role at Juno, Macann – a New Zealander – spent 25 years in the Australian financial services industry including stints at Vanguard, Macquarie and the-now IOOF-owned advisory group, Shadforth Financial. Before returning to NZ in 2018, he spent a couple of years leading the advice business of the almost $80 billion Queensland government employee super fund, Qsuper.
Kiwi Wealth is also yet to name a new chief customer officer to replace Joe Bishop, who left the role in April to head the Police and Families Credit Union (PFCU).
In January this year, Gina Dellabarca, a 20-year plus veteran of the institution, was shifted sideways to head of wealth and consumer banking at Westpac, replacing former National MP Simon Power, who is now general manager corporate and institutional banking.
Elsewhere, Fisher Investments Australia and NZ head of institutional business development, Eric Finnell, has departed after a 12-year career with the US growth manager. The Sydney-based Finnell shifts to fund affiliate business, Bennelong Funds Management.
As reported earlier this year, Fisher Investments lost a string of institutional mandates in the wake of sexually-explicit comments aired by founder, Ken Russell, at a supposedly private event.
Fisher had some exposure in NZ, most notably a $140 million on behalf of the Wellington-based boutique Booster.
At Bennelong, which represents a suite of about seven boutique managers in Australia and offshore, Finnell is institutional distribution executive.
In a statement, Bennelong chief, Craig Bingham, said the firm had seen “increased interest in our products here in Australia, but also in our UK-based boutiques and their offerings”.
“Eric’s appointment will ensure our important institutional clients continue to receive the high level of service our investors expect of us,” Bingham said.
In other trans-Tasman news last week, both Metrics Credit Partners and T Rowe Price have made senior appointments.
Specialist credit manager, Metrics, which launched in NZ this year, named Michael Goldman and Lance McKegg as investment directors in May.
Previously, McKegg served as UBS managing director in Australia while Goldman was head of origination for property fund CVS Lane Capital Partners.
Andrew Lockhart, Metrics managing partner, said in release: “We are continuing to see strong demand for funding from a range of Australian and New Zealand companies and both Lance and Michael bring a wealth of experience which will help us to further strengthen our offer to borrowers and investors.
“… Both Lance and Michael are well known to our team having worked together with us at NAB back in the early to mid-2000s.”
Meanwhile, T Rowe Price replaced long-time head of distribution for Australia and NZ, Murray Brewer, with an internal candidate.
Darren Hall has been with T Rowe Price in Australia since 2007 as national sales manager.
The US-based manager’s Asia-Pacific head of distribution, Nick Trueman, said: “[Hall’s] extensive experience and expertise in relationship management, understanding of the local market and demonstrated investment knowledge make him the ideal leader for our ANZ operations.”
T Rowe Price has a number of institutional clients in NZ as well as a retail fund fronted by Harbour Asset Management.