Putnam Makes Play for Institutions, Snags Division Head from Lazard

Putnam Investments has named Lazard’s former institutional sales head to the top job in its burgeoning institutional asset management business.

Jeff Gould—who is still listed as a managing director on Lazard’s website—will be responsible for growing Putnam’s stature and client roster among the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds, corporate and public pensions funds, endowments, and foundations.

Putnam has secured a known quantity in Gould: He spent nearly two decades climbing the ladder at the firm, culminating in 2005 as a managing director and head of institutional sales. Beyond distribution efforts, Putnam said Gould also oversaw client service programs, product development, and consultant relations. He then joined Lazard Asset Management for nine years.

“In bringing aboard a savvy, industry leader like Jeff Gould to take the helm of this important business, we are confident that Putnam’s presence and impact in the institutional arena will only continue to grow,” said Robert Reynolds, the firm’s president, CEO, and Gould’s direct superior.

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As of the end of June, Putnam managed $159 billion in assets, including $85 billion in mutual fund vehicles and $74 billion from institutions.

This is the second major appointment for the firm’s parent organization in the last week.

On September 10, Edmund Murphy was named president of sister organization Great-West Financial's retirement business, also reporting to Reynolds.

“The US market represents a significant growth opportunity for Great-West Lifeco,” said the firm's President and CEO Paul Mahon in March. “The new structure will allow Great-West Lifeco to pursue expanded US opportunities by leveraging the combined strengths and capabilities of our core businesses in a coordinated manner to best serve clients.”

Putnam—geared towards institutional clients—has built out its sales and consultant relations teams over the last year. It has developed dedicated resources for endowments and foundations, as well as new lines of risk-savvy products. In Gould, Reynolds saw the ideal leader to bring these efforts to market.

"Foremost, I really liked him as a person—I liked his values," Reynolds told CIO of the recruitment process. "He has tremendous experience, and when you go out and talk to people who have been doing this a long time and ask who the real top players are, his name always came up. We really wanted to make a statement and grow in the institutional marketplace, and that’s why we took our time."

The group that created and launched an engaged ownership mandate for the second largest pension fund in Europe has secured $750 million from UK institutional investors.

Ownership Capital, the staff of which span out of PGGM—the in-house investment manager for the €143 billion PFZW—has announced it has won equity mandates from the Unilever UK Pension Fund, The Pensions Trust, and the Environment Agency Pension Fund.

“Investments are made with a ten-year time horizon, seeking to align the long-term success of well-managed companies with the long-term obligations of pension funds,” Ownership Capital said. The firm’s statement said the approach was “unprecedented” for a public equity manager.

“One of our core beliefs is that responsible investment can enhance long-term returns, and that as an investor we should act as a custodian of the assets and markets in which we invest,” said David Adkins, CIO of The Pensions Trust.

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Ownership Capital’s portfolio holds just 20-30 stocks at a time, “enabling the investment team to take substantial stakes in and gain a deeper understanding of investee companies,” it said. The group has also implemented a proprietary investment process that integrates qualitative factors, such as management, governance, and sustainability within its financial analysis.

Alex van der Velden, partner and CIO at Ownership Capital, said while investing for PFZW, the team realised that much of the asset management industry was overly short-termist and failing to align its strategies with the long-term needs of pension investors.

The view falls in line with the study of the UK equities market undertaken by Professor John Kay in 2012, which showed an increasing trend in short-term investing and a disconnect between companies and their end investors.