Morningstar NZ customers won’t suffer any drop in service quality despite the departure of two executives who were key to operations this side of the Tasman, according to head of the Australian business, Jamie Wickham.
“We will continue to support our NZ clients just as we do today,” Wickham said.
Last week Morningstar confirmed Tim Murphy, director of manager research Asia Pacific, would leave the business “immediately” after a 15-year career at the research house. In an earlier unreported move, Nigel O’Brien, Morningstar national account executive, also quietly exited the corporate building.
While both Murphy and ex-pat Kiwi, O’Brien, lived in Sydney, they were important contact points for Morningstar NZ clients.
Wickham said the staff departures followed a Morningstar Australia business makeover with sales and investment duties reshuffled.
In a release last week, Morningstar global head of manager selection, Grant Kennaway, said some model portfolio responsibilities previously handled by Murphy’s manager selection division would be shifted to the investment team, headed by Matt Wacher.
“As part of this change, we mutually agreed with Tim Murphy that now was the right time for Tim to take on a new challenge and he will be leaving Morningstar immediately,” Kennaway said. “Tim is a fifteen-year veteran of our business and was instrumental in the growth of our research capabilities, business and brand in Australia and New Zealand.”
At the same time, Wickham said the Morningstar Australia sales team has been reorganised along four “segment” lines covering institutional, asset management, advisory and wealth management, and “alliances”.
He said the respective segment sales staff – all Australia-based – would support NZ clients.
Morningstar effectively closed its NZ office several years ago just as other Australian fund research shops – including van Eyk, Lonsec and, later, Zenith – also abandoned trans-Tasman efforts.
However, Morningstar retains a significant client base in NZ across institutions, fund managers and advisory firms, Wickham said.
Also, Greg Bunkall, Morningstar data director Asia-Pacific, is stationed in Auckland – albeit as a member of the global business rather than a local specialist.
Bunkall, though, will pick up some of Murphy’s duties as the lead on the quarterly Morningstar KiwiSaver surveys.
Among other staff moves, director manager selection, Aman Ramrakha, “will transition into Morningstar’s investment team, effective 1 January 2023”, Kennaway said.
Ramrakha will report to Jody Fitzgerald, Morningstar Australia head of portfolio management and solutions, while Annika Bradley “will continue to oversee the qualitative research and ratings on Australian and New Zealand fund managers as we grow our manager research client base”.