Cigna
Global health services company Cigna has promoted Phil Austin to chief executive, Europe and restructured its European team. Austin will continue to report to Howard Gough, chief executive for Europe, Middle East and Africa.
Austin, who previously headed up the UK business, joined Cigna in 2002 as partnership director for the UK HealthCare Benefits business. He held a number of leadership roles within Cigna, including Health, Life & Accident (HL&A) Europe sales and marketing director, interim chief executive for HL&A Europe, and managing director for Cigna’s domestic health care businesses in UK and Spain.
In addition to Austin’s expanded role, the newly restructured European team has made four internal appointments.
Liam Hughes will become European sales & client management director, spanning the global employer and local domestic businesses.
Will Shaw will assume the role of sales effectiveness director. In this role he will have responsibility for all areas of sales effectiveness supporting our European sales and client management team on our go to market strategy.
Frank Indestege will become EU partnership and B2G director, responsible for implementing Cigna’s partnership strategy across Europe and driving its sales strategy for the business to government segment
Amy MacKay also takes on a new role and has been appointed Emea head of broker relations and cross sell, with a full regional remit to optimise sales opportunities and relationships across all our markets.
River & Mercantile
Philip Rodrigs, lead manager on three River & Mercantile UK funds, left the firm on Wednesday following “an investigation into a professional conduct issue”. The firm said the conduct issue was unrelated to Rodrigs’ portfolio management responsibilities.
Chief executive James Barham said: “It is disappointing to have to take this course of action.”
The management of each of the funds has passed to the alternate mangers, with Dan Hanbury taking over UK smaller companies, William Lough assuming control of UK dynamic equity and George Ensor being named lead on the micro-cap trust.
Quilter Cheviot
Discretionary investment manager Quilter Cheviot is strengthening its investment team in London and Salisbury with three hires: Oliver Harwood, Vaughn Webber and Scott Holloway.
Harwood joined the London-based team in November from Brooks Macdonald, where he was an investment manager.
Webber and Holloway have joined the Salisbury office as investment managers.
Liontrust
Independent fund management group Liontrust has recruited Bernhard Klocke to join its international sales team.
He is working with James Beddall and Antonio Forte in selling the firm’s Ireland-based range of funds to the institutional and wholesale distribution markets across continental Europe.
Klocke, who has taken on the role of international sales director, is focusing on the Nordic region, Germany, Austria and the German-speaking parts of Switzerland.
Before joining Liontrust, Klocke was managing director of Sky Harbor Capital Management and was also previously head of distribution in Germany and Austria at Axa Investment Managers and co-head of wholesale for Germany at JP Morgan Asset Management.
HSBC Global Asset Management
HSBC GAM has appointed Sebastien Faucher as head of passive fixed income to its investment team. This newly created role is part of a strategic initiative to continue ensuring that the business provides its clients with the most relevant and effective range of products and solutions, the firm said.
Based in London, Faucher will functionally report to Xavier Baraton global chief investment officer, fixed income, and locally to Philip Glaze, chief investment officer UK.
He joins from Legal & General Investment Management where he was head of index fixed income, responsible for ongoing fund management activities across all index fund strategies, including fund implementation, client on boarding, and portfolio transition.
RSM
Auditing, tax and consultancy firm RSM UK has appointed David Gwilliam as chief executive, effective from 1 April 2018. Gwilliam is currently chief operating officer.
He will replace Laurence Longe, who is to become chairman after 22 years at the helm.
RWC
Davide Basile has recruited Justin Craib-Cox to bolster his convertible bond investment team. Craib-Cox has spent over 24 years working in financial services and over a decade in convertible bond markets.
He was responsible for the Aviva convertible bond team where he spent over six years and prior to that he was within the Convertible Bond team at M&G.
Basile joined RWC 10 years ago to build out the convertible bond team and is now responsible for over $1.2bn (£862m, €979m) in AUM across a range of institutional accounts and Ucits funds that specialise in global convertibles and Asia specific convertible funds.
