Kady Buchanan has departed Nikko Asset Management just two years after joining the business in a senior sales role.
In a note to clients, Nikko says Buchanan resigned the group to “take up a role with a competitor” – understood to be Milford.
She joined Nikko in March 2023 to replace Sam Bryden, who was promoted to head of distribution as incumbent, James Wesley, took deputy chief executive spot (later bumped up to chief) for the manager in the Americas region.
Previously, Buchanan spent 11 years selling real estate for the Hong Kong-based Habitat Property after a five-year institutional equities sales career with UBS in the US and UK.
Nikko is due to rebrand as Amova Asset Management in September as part of a global name-change.
Meanwhile, ex head financial regulator, Rob Everett, has joined the board of Simplicity as the mostly passive investment house is poised to break through the $10 billion mark a decade after launch.
Everett, current chief of the government venture fund outfit NZ Growth Capital Partners (NZGCP), tapped onboard as a Simplicity director this month ahead of a planned upgrade to chair in July.
He will replace foundation chair, Joy Marslin, on a board that has seen little change since economist, Shamubeel Eaqub, ended a two-year directorship in mid-2019. Eaqub is now officially on the Simplicity payroll as chief economist in a role created last October.
After serving seven years as Financial Markets Authority chief, Everett left the regulator late in 2021 to take up the NZGCP job the following January.
Established by ex Tower Investments and Hanover Finance chief, Sam Stubbs, in 2015 as a pure index-play KiwiSaver scheme, Simplicity has expanded over the ensuing 10 years to include a broader funds business as well as adding off-benchmark assets such as mortgages, venture capital and property development.
As at the end of last year, Simplicity managed almost $9 billion in KiwiSaver and other retail funds, according to Plan for Life.
For the 12 months to March 31 last year, the Simplicity Foundation (the charitable trust that owns the manager) reported a profit of about $890,000 on revenue of more than $14.4 million ($12.8 million in 2023).
Expenses of $13.6 million included grants of almost $2 million spread across 94 charities, employee costs of $3.8 million and ‘other’ expenses of $7.4 million ($4.7 million relating to Simplicity fund operations).
Director fees amounted to more than $1.3 million for the financial year while Stubbs earned almost $280,000 as managing director as well as a $451,245 allocation for “temporary funding of expenses” in the accounts.