Dual-location boutique manager Pie Funds has embarked on a recruitment blitz following a period of rapid growth and the exit of a portfolio manager.
The staff changes coincide with a slight reshuffle on the share register while new independent director, Brenden Hall, joined the Pie board at the end of July, replacing Steven Nichols.
Mike Taylor, Pie chief, said the firm had filled one of the six positions up for grabs at the now $2.5 billion manager with Stephanie Cross confirmed as head of compliance.
Cross was previously a senior client relationship manager with the Covenant trustee business.
Taylor said the manager was also recruiting for a new portfolio manager to replace Doug Jopling, who ran the group’s Australasian Growth Fund. Jopling, who joined Pie in 2018, departed to take up a senior position at meat company, Ovation.
In the interim, his portfolio duties have been shared between “our senior Australasian portfolio managers, Mark Devcich, Chris Bainbridge and Mike Ross”, Taylor said.
He said Pie was also looking to hire an investment analyst in both its UK and Auckland offices as well as marketing and risk management positions. Mark Bull, meanwhile, had moved desks in the Pie office from client services to become the fourth financial adviser in the fund manager’s stable.
The up-staffing comes two years after Pie cut employee numbers at a time the manager was verging on $1 billion under management.
As at the end of July this year, Pie reported total funds under management of $2.5 billion including about $500 million in its more than 16,000-member Juno KiwiSaver scheme.
Like most NZ fund managers over the 12 months to the end of March this year, Pie reported healthy revenue and profit growth. According to the most recent Pie accounts, the manager booked just under $20 million in revenue for the annual period and net profit after tax of $2.9 million, up from $15.9 million and $643,000, respectively, during the previous year.
Investment management fees rose to $17.5 million from $14.6 million in the 2020 tax period while advisory fees grew over $200,000 year-on-year to over $590,000 while administration fees were up almost four-times to $1.1 million.
Pie, which launched in 2007, removed its performance fees starting in the 2020 financial year.
New director, Hall, also serves on the boards of Unison Networks, Aurora Energy and ETEL. In July, former director, Nichols, sold his shareholding at the same time as Lance Jones (ex Pie director and chief operating officer) and Philip Judge.