Aviva Investors raids Standard Life Aberdeen in hiring spree

According to the Financial Times, Mikhail Zvervev, head of global equities, and Alistair Way, head of global emerging market equities, are among the hires.

Also joining are fund managers Henry Flockhart and Adam McInally on UK equities, Jaime Ramos Martin and Ross Mathison on global equities and Jonathan Toub and Will Malcolm on global emerging markets. 

Several of these names announced their departure from Standard Life Aberdeen in April and all eight will be based in the firm's Edinburgh office, which will open this month and has room for 60 staff, the firm said.  

Aviva has a history of hiring managers from Standard Life, having hired head of equities David Cumming in December while chief executive Euan Munro formerly ran the SLI Global Absolute Return Strategies (GARS) fund.

Munro said: "These hires will enhance our ability to offer compelling equity propositions for wholesale and institutional investors, as well as strengthening idea generation for our broader range of investment solutions."

A spokesperson for Aberdeen Standard Investments said: "Inevitably when you integrate two investment teams, there will be some departures. Following the merger of Aberdeen Asset Management and Standard Life, we have created one of the largest and best resourced equities teams in the industry. We now have over 150 equity investment professionals on-the-ground around the world.

"That scale is important because our approach relies on fundamental research, which we think is best carried out by well-resourced teams which are close to the markets in which they are investing.

"We are grateful for their hard work over the years and are pleased they have found new roles in Edinburgh."

Zvervev also managed the £198m Standard Life Investments Global Equity Unconstrained fund and Way managed the £249m Standard Life Investments Global Emerging Markets Equity fund. 

Their sector head roles have been taken over by Stephen Docherty as head of global equities and Devan Kaloo as head of EM equities. 

Completing the team, Andrew Millington is head of UK equities, Jeff Morris is head of North American equities and Stan Pearson is head of European equities.

McInally and Flockhart ran the £250m UK Equity High Alpha fund and £240m UK Equity Growth fund, which will be taken over by Frederik Nassauer and Millington respectively.

Ramos Martin was a manager on the North American fund while Mathison was deputy manager on the £140m Global Equity Income fund with Kevin Troup, who has since retired. 

These funds have been taken over by Dominic Byrne, deputy head of global equities, and Donal Reynolds, senior vice-president for global equity.

Malcolm was manager of the £60m Asian Pacific Growth fund which has been taken over by Flavia Cheong, head of Asia Pacific equities. 

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