Correction: Matt Harris was appointed investment director for Japanese equities by Standard Life Investments, not Matt Williams as reported here
SCOTTISH Widows Investment Partnership has ramped up its sales presence in the US as it looks to cash in on the growing willingness of American pension funds to spread their bets into areas like emerging markets.
The asset management arm of the life and pensions business owned by Lloyds TSB has recruited sector veteran Deborah LaBerge to head up a drive to win mandates from institutions in the eastern region of the US.
The appointment comes three months after Edinburghbased SWIP signed another experienced American operator, Dan Mueller, to lead a drive for business in the western region of the country.
Andy Frepp, head of sales and marketing, said SWIP believed that changes in the investment strategies followed by pension funds in the giant US market could play to the firm's strengths.
In particular, Frepp noted there had been a big increase in the amount that institutions had allocated to global emerging markets, an area in which SWIP had a good track record, in recent years.
Last year, about dollars-5bn (GBP2.6bn) in new funds were allocated to the sector, taking total investment by institutions to GBP53bn.
This is a substantial niche, and one in which margins are better than those firms usually make on bread and butter institutional business in the UK.
Global emerging market mandates might carry annual fees of around 0.8-per cent to 1-per cent of the amount managed, compared with around 0.55-per cent to 0.6-per cent for more mainstream business.
While SWIP had yet to win any mandates in the US, Frepp said the firm was pleased by progress in the western region.
The operation was on the radar screen of the consultants that advised pension funds and had participated in an unspecified number of beauty parades for mandates.
LaBerge has been hired as managing director and head of US sales for the eastern region to develop new business across all institutional sectors. SWIP's target market includes large corporations, endowments and public funds.
As a former managing director of institutional sales and consultant relations with Zurich Scudder Investments and US Trust, she will bring extensive experience of winning asset management business.
Frepp said a good performance in the UK institutional market helped SWIP more than double first-half profits to GBP17m.
The division has almost GBP100bn under management, including GBP1.6bn in global emerging markets, after winning new mandates worth more than GBP2bn in the first six months. It does not currently manage any US institutional funds.
Separately, Standard Life's investment arm said it had hired Matt Williams, head of Japanese research at SWIP, to be investment director for Japanese equities.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article