Buxton will join OMGI in June in the same role he held at Schroders just one year after celebrating his tenth year at the helm of the £3.4bn Schroder UK Alpha Plus Fund.
OMGI said it planned to rename its £160m Old Mutual Equity 3 Fund, currently run by Buxton on behalf of Schroders on a sub-advisory basis, the Old Mutual UK Alpha Fund – subject to regulatory approval. It said this was an "identical" unit trust to the one he has been running at Schroders.
In addition, Errol Francis who has worked with Buxton for 16 years both at Barings and Schroders is starting at OMGI with him. He will report to Buxton alongside the rest of the UK equity teams.
Julian Ide, CEO of OMGI, said: “We are excited to have two exceptional managers joining our team. Not only do Buxton and Francis have an outstanding track record, they are also an excellent cultural fit with our business and their appointment complements our existing UK Equity Teams.
“By adding Buxton and Francis’ large cap investment capabilities alongside our UK small and mid -Cap, UK all companies and UK equity income teams, we will have a market leading suite of long-only and long-short UK investment strategies.”
Schroders’ statement
In a statement Schroders played down the departure: “We thank Buxton for his service to Schroders over the past 11 years. He leaves behind him a very strong UK equity team with 16 other fund managers and we will be announcing his replacement in due course,” said Peter Harrison, global head of equities.
“UK equity assets are now less than 5% of our total global assets and two-thirds of our firm-wide revenues come from overseas markets where we continue to see significant growth opportunities,” he added.
Industry figures were not so easy to sway as to the importance of the move, however.
Industry reaction
Bestinvest’s Jason Hollands said this was almost certainly the “biggest name job move” in the UK retail asset management industry of 2013.
“It is self-evidently disappointing news for Schroders to lose a key manager and the timing of the news – the peak season for new retail business is clearly unhelpful.
“However it is important to remember that this is Schroders, a substantial and well-resourced investment institution, not a small boutique,” he added.
Since launch the Schroder UK Alpha Plus Fund has returned 222% versus 116% from the FTSE All Share and 107% from the IMA UK All Companies Sector average.
Over five years Buxton’s fund has returned investors 49.4% compared with 2.94% form the sector and 33.8% from the benchmark, according to Lipper.
Mark Dampier, head of investment research at Hargreaves Lansdown, said Buxton had masterminded the fund as the antithesis to the tracker fund and has proved that good active mangers can add significant value.
He added that the fund had been on Hargreaves Lansdown’s Wealth 150 since launch, but that investors need not rush to sell it because Buxton is staying on until June.
