Mint Asset Management has hired a new senior analyst from another Auckland-based boutique firm to bolster its trans-Tasman equity team.
Michael Kenealy will join Mint in January following a more than seven-year stint at Salt Funds Management where he was senior investment analyst and assistant portfolio manager for the firm’s Long Short Fund.
Previously, Kenealy spent time in Peru working for a philanthropic fund after starting his NZ finance career in 2008 with research and trading roles at. Goldman Sachs JBWere
Including the new hire, Mint has a seven-strong investment team headed by Anthony Halls.
Earlier in November the almost $2 billion manager embarked on a new strategy to establish a diversified financial services business in partnership with Ascentro Capital Partners. Under the deal Mint will from part of the Amplifi Group – the parent company that will acquire investment and wealth management businesses.
Elsewhere last week, Morningstar named Peter Bryant as head of business development for Australia and NZ.
Bryant comes to Morningstar from the Commonwealth Bank of Australian where he was most recently general manager advice services for its financial planning arm.
He replaces incumbement, Phil Winter, who returns to the Morningstar base-camp in Chicago at the end of the year.
Jamie Wickham, Morningstar Australasia head, said a release that the business was focused on “investor centricity and high conviction in the importance of financial advice”.
“As we approach the two-year anniversary of the AdviserLogic software acquisition, we are focused on driving initiatives across our product portfolio to empower the success of advisers and individuals – and those that serve them,” he said.
Morningstar recently increased its product profile in NZ under a deal to offer model portfolios via the Consilium-owned Synergy discretionary investment management service.
In other moves, Financial Markets Authority (FMA) investment management director, Paul Gregory, has taken a further acting role at the top table with the exit of Sarah Vrede.
Vrede ends her two-year turn as FMA capital markets director to assume the chief executive spot at the New Zealand Financial Markets Association – the peak body for the local institutional banking industry.
Prior to the FMA she was head of the NZ Debt Management Office, the Treasury division charged with implementing government borrowing programs.
Gregory steps into the Vrede void this week in an interim capacity, joining current fill-in FMA chief, Liam Mason, in acting duties for the regulator.
Mason took the reins from former FMA head, Rob Everett, in October with full-time replacement, Samantha Barrass, slated to start in January after relocating from the UK.
Also last week, the NZX and its funds management arm, Smartshares, both revealed board changes with the respective exits of John McMahon and Lindsay Wright.
McMahon, a NZX director since June 2019, will be replaced by Peter Jessup on the board, effective January 1 next year.
A Nasdaq veteran, Jessup joined the NZX technology committee this April (now moving to the chair role) following a cyber-attack on the exchange in 2020.
He also will take a seat on the NZX audit and risk committee.
Meanwhile, Wright – an independent Smartshares director since 2018 – has stepped down in favour of NZX chief financial officer, Graham Law.
She remains on the main NZX board, however.
Wright has served more than 30 years in various senior financial industry roles both in management and governance, including a long stretch on the board of the NZ Superannuation Fund.