River & Mercantile plans quality growth and alternative credit team hires
'Greater diversification'
River & Mercantile plans to hire global quality/growth equity and alternative credit teams, as it looks to offer "greater diversification" within its product range.
The firm this year recruited Schroders' James Sym to work within its PVT team and run a newly launched European equity strategy for the wholesale market.
In its Q4 trading statement, it said it was now on the look out for a global quality/growth equity team, to complement its PVT team, which is headed up by Hugh Sergeant.
R&M also said it is seeking "the right alternative credit team".
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Group CEO James Barham said the firm was "rich in talent and expertise and is diversified across some of the key growth sectors of our industry".
"However there are parts of our business where I would like to see greater diversification and in particular in some of our manufacturing capabilities," Barham added.
"We have continued to develop highly relevant strategies where we are utilising the IP from across the group and delivering these in product form where the needs they meet are widespread across our client base.
"We have also continued to add to our existing investment activities such as the recent recruitment of James Sym from Schroders.
"Further, we are also looking to add a global quality/growth equity team… and we continue to seek the right alternative credit team to meet the needs for these skills across our group and of our diverse client base."
Barham also said R&M would continue to "finesse our plans for the future" over the course of the coming 12 months, following on from a strengthening of its distribution team.
R&M added Merian Global Investors' Simon Smith as head of wholesale recently, alongside its first dedicated head of fiduciary and advisory sales in Ronan O'Riordan from Russell Investments, following its 2019 hire of David Hanratty from Pioneer Investments as global head of distribution.
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Barham continued: "Our own distribution network will be concentrated in our core markets of United Kingdom and Europe, North America and Australia.
"These are large institutional and sophisticated wholesale markets where our existing and planned product line-up is well aligned with the deepest asset pools and the arrival of Simon Smith will be an important part of our plans in this area.
"[Smith] has already started work with the existing team to develop this important distribution line and add more resource as required.
"Our continuing investment in distribution, and where appropriate investment manufacturing, is a key part of our medium-term strategy.
"Supporting this with an efficient and aligned operating platform across the entirety of our business is critical and we plan to increase our investment in this part of our operations over the next few years to enhance operational efficiency over the medium term."
For the three months to June 2020, R&M said it saw £1.5bn of net inflows on £3.1bn of gross sales, driven by positive investment performance of £2.3bn.
In the 12 months to June 2020, R&M received net inflows of £3.7bn on £8.2bn of gross sales, with investment performance adding £700m during that period.
Fee earning assets under management and notional under management grew to £44.2bn, it added, up 11.1% from the same period during 2019.
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