Ex AMP man to manage money forTower

Tower Asset Management has contracted Stephen Walker to manage part of its New Zealand share portfolios.

Friday, September 14th 2001, 11:34AM

The manager is Walker Capital Management, a new firm headed up by Stephen Walker. Walker has 14 years investment experience, the last 7 managing New Zealand equities for AMP.

The reason for the move is to expand its capacity for managing New Zealand shares on behalf of the Tower Group and its other institutional clients.

Tower Asset Management manages almost $900 million of New Zealand shares. This has grown from $250 million in the last 9 years.
Over $550 million is managed for independent third party clients such as large corporate superannuation schemes and charitable trusts. $350 million is managed for the Tower group of companies.

The NZ share portfolios are managed by Wayne Stechman who has been with Tower for 12 years.

"Tower Asset Management has an outstanding record in managing New Zealand shares over the last 10 years or more. Risk adjusted returns over 3 and 5 years are the best in the market place bar none" Tower Asset Management managing director Paul Bevin says.

Tower Asset Management closed its doors to new institutional accounts over 2 years ago because the amount of funds had grown too big to manage actively in the New Zealand market without threatening the investment results of its existing clients.
"We continued to accept funds in Tower’s pooled retail funds and will continue to do so. Out-sourcing some of those funds will enable us to maintain performance while accepting some new accounts," Bevin says.

Initially Walker Capital Management will be managing about $85 million for Tower Asset Management but it is hoped to increase this in the near term.
"We expect comparable performance to our existing portfolios and we would not be doing this if we weren’t confident about that," Bevin says.

Walker Capital Management will be opening its offices in Auckland in October.

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