Trustees Executors (TE) has filled a role left vacant for over a year after hiring Justin Fox as head of wealth.
Fox comes to TE from retirement sector firm Summerset where he was head of villages. He replaces John Winch who left TE last April before subsequently landing a similar job at Perpetual Guardian.
Ryan Bessemer, TE chief, said the group’s chief financial officer, Stuart McLaren, had been looking after the wealth business in the interim.
Bessemer said prior to Summerset, Fox had extensive experience in wealth management roles including offshore.
Fox would have responsibility for TE’s private wealth, estate, personal trust and advice functions, Bessemer said.
He said Fox starts at TE on April 29.
Meanwhile, last week Public Trust named Kirsty Campbell and Vicki Sykes as new board members. Campbell, a former Financial Markets Authority head of supervision, also serves on the board of Salt Funds Management and previously was a director of passive fund provider, Simplicity. Sykes boasts a number of current and former director roles including with the Christian KiwiSaver scheme.
“Both appointments will serve to strengthen and shape the future of Public Trust’s commercial operations and its commitment to quality customer service,” the government-owned agency said in a release.
This January Public Trust appointed Glenys Talivai as CEO, replacing Bob Smith, who retired after five years leading the organisation.
Also last week, the $500 million Investment Services Group (ISG) subsidiary, Clarity Funds Management, is planning a tilt at the wholesale market after appointing a chief investment officer (CIO) last week.
Richard O’Brien, Investment Services Group (ISG) chief, said with Josh Wilson now installed as CIO, the manager could better engage with wholesale and institutional investors.
“We don’t have any wholesale or institutional clients yet but we have had a couple of approaches recently,” O’Brien said.
He said having a dedicated CIO – Clarity’s first stand-alone investment appointment – would give the group more credibility among wholesale investors.
To date, Clarity has grown primarily through retail client flows from ISG-related advisory firm, JMI Wealth, and other third-party advice businesses.
Wilson officially joined Clarity this week following an eight-year stint as Australasian equities portfolio manager for NZ Funds Management. James Grigor, promoted from portfolio manager to NZ Funds CIO last December, has assumed Wilson’s duties at his old shop.
O’Brien said Wilson would at first take over management of the Clarity Australasian equities portfolio – currently advised by JMI Wealth. However, he said the incoming CIO would review the Clarity product suite and growth opportunities over the coming months.
In a statement, O’Brien said “given the capacity constraints in the local market, we believe that the addition of Josh will allow Clarity to be a genuine alternative to the incumbent providers”.
He said Clarity would expand the investment team over time with an analyst hire likely in the next 12 months.
Clarity, which emerged out of the JMIS Investment Management in 2017, offers two trans-Tasman equity funds, a fixed income portfolio, a global equities product (outsourced to MFS) and two diversified funds.
Andrew Kelleher, principal of JMI Wealth (formerly JMIS), manages the Clarity fixed income portfolio with a focus on local securities.
Overall, ISG has about $5.4 billion under management through its underlying businesses Clarity, Devon Funds, JMI Wealth and Select (the discretionary investment management service – DIMS – platform purchased from Sovereign in 2015).
O’Brien said while the ISG firms operate at arms-length the group did share back-office services including a new CRM system due to be rolled out across the business.
He said the Salesforce CRM system would enable ISG clients and advisers to more-readily view their investments through ‘portals’ that were integrated with administration platforms such as Aegis and MMC.
“There’ll be some real efficiencies such as allowing digital applications that are AML [anti money laundering] compliant,” O’Brien said. “We’re making an investment that sets the foundation for future growth across the group.”