Big shake-up at Mint
New products are on the agenda for boutique fund manager Mint Asset Management, as it looks to expand its capabilities with some big changes to its investment team.
Tuesday, November 26th 2013, 1:51PM
by Niko Kloeten
Today the firm announced a couple of new hires, as well as a change in job description for founder Rebecca Thomas, while also announcing the departure of long-serving portfolio manager Shane Solly, who leaves at Christmas.
There are now former BT investment managers now on its staff.
One of them is Mint independent director Paul Richardson, who has been appointed chief investment officer of the company, starting from January.
The role is currently held by Thomas, who is both chief investment officer and chief executive. She will vacate the former role to focus on her tasks as chief executive as well as the overall management of the business.
Richardson will remain on the board as executive director, with a new independent director expected to be announced early next year.
Richardson is joined by former BT Funds colleague Greg Fraser, who has been appointed to the role of senior investment analyst, starting this week.
Anthony Halls, who worked with Richardson and Fraser at BT before moving to the NZ Super Fund, will continue to manage Mint’s transtasman equity portfolio. He joined Mint in September.
Former Goldman Sachs JBWere analyst Carlie Eve, who has been with Mint since its inception in 2006, will assume responsibility for Mint’s transtasman property portfolio.
Thomas says the appointments are a result of months of work as part of the succession planning process for when Solly left.
“The situation we’ve had is if you analyse our performance to date we’ve had very good numbers and people like our people and processes but we haven’t had a lot of bench strength and we’ve had a lot of key man risk with Shane as an individual,” she says. “We wanted people to work together as a team rather than individuals managing a portfolio.”
Thomas says there have been several notable examples of local fund managers suffering poor performance and fund outflows after the departure of key staff, a fate she says Mint has managed to avoid.
“Key man risk is part of being a boutique. We have warmed our clients up to this over a period of time and our clients are happy with the changes. Our current flow rates are pretty secure.
“We’ve also had a mandate in the pipeline during that period and we think that will come through.”
Thomas says the personnel moves have also been made as part of a plan to create new products, including managing money for KiwiSaver providers.
Niko Kloeten can be contacted at niko@goodreturns.co.nz
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