(July 19, 2013) — The main man behind one of the most successful multi-asset, absolute return funds in Europe has left the firm to take up the CEO role at a competitor.
Euan Munro is to leave Standard Life Investments as global head of multi-asset investing and fixed income to take the helm at Aviva Investors. He will assume the role in January, Aviva Investors said today.
Munro was one the lead architects of the Global Absolute Return Strategies Fund (GARS), which has grown through investor inflows and performance to be one of the largest and most successful of its type in Europe.
“GARS was initially developed to address the investment return and volatility needs of the defined-benefit Standard Life Staff Pension Scheme in 2005,” the Standard Life Investments website said. “The core requirement was to achieve a specified target return and minimize funding risk while also reducing the funding gap that had developed in the wake of increased market volatility – delivering good returns but with less volatility than traditional investment strategies.”
The strategy was initially marketed to institutional investors in the UK and then was pushed out to other regions, including North America. Its performance is displayed on the company’s website here.
Last September, Invesco Perpetual poached three of the original team behind GARS-David Millar, Dave Jubb and Richard Batty-to join its new multi-asset group, leaving barely any of the original founders of the strategy at Standard Life Investments.
The company released a statement announcing that Guy Stern, head of multi-asset and macro investing, would replace Munro on the Standard Life Investments executive board.
Earlier this year, the $256 billion California Public Employees’ Retirement System announced it was investing half a billion dollars in a new multi-asset fund managed by Standard Life Investments.
Aviva Investors, which has £275 billion in client assets, has been without a permanent CEO since the departure of Alain Dromer in May last year. In the interim period, head of investments Paul Abberley had been acting CEO until the company announced barely a month ago the appointment of Paul Misselbrook into the temporary role.
The company, which is part of giant European insurer Aviva, has been subject to large staff cuts over the past 18 months.