RBC Investor & Treasury Services in Australia has restructured its leadership team with the recruitment of two senior people from JP Morgan – Marian Azer and David Brown. Both are very experienced in the custody space and are expected to join their new firm in a few weeks.
Azer is an executive director and head of product for Investor Services at JP Morgan, who joined the firm from Mercer Sentinel as head of fund services in 2012. Brown, a senior relationship manager, is a long-time JP Morgan executive, who dates back to its predecessor Chase Manhattan business in the 1990s.
David Travers, the managing director in Australia, said last week that he could not comment on the industry speculation. Separately, however, he confirmed that Steve Tremelling, the director of ‘global client coverage’, had left RBC after about four years in that role. Tremelling was, effectively, the head of sales for the firm, which is understood to be looking to go down the path of combining sales with client relationship servicing.
Tremelling declined to comment, over the weekend, on his departure. He had been responsible for the Legg Mason and Bennelong multi-affiliate manager custody mandates at RBC.
The two new roles – of Azer and Brown – are unclear at the moment. Azer, who coincidentally worked with Tremelling at BNP Paribas before she joined Mercer Sentinel in 2006, joining its then head, Lounarda David, in a major re-build of that business, has a wide range of experiences, which have tended to use her strong technical knowledge of securities servicing. (David is now the head of investment operations at Sunsuper).
RBC has embarked on a big technology revamp to capitalise more on its global capabilities, which is in its final stages of introduction in the region. This includes the phasing out of the Hi-Portfolio fund accounting admin system.
The firm is expected to announce the next phase of this development in later next month.
Unlike its major competitors in Australia, RBC specialises in funds management clients, rather than super funds. Its largest is Perpetual Investments.
Greg Bright is publisher of Investor Strategy News (Australia)