The firm is in the process of interviewing for someone to head up the new team and build a brand new proposition, though this is not the first time the group has gone down this route.
In an attempt to move away from its heavy reliance on a small number of fund managers and a highly concentrated asset pool, similar plans were set in motion in the early 2000s, shortly after the acquisition by Invesco’s parent company, AMVESCAP, of Perpetual.
This was vetoed at the eleventh hour by opposition from the investment side of the business, even though contracts were already in place and ready to be signed.
However, the company is not without a track record in this area, having had a multi-manager proposition based in Paris that largely ran institutional life company assets.
The Henley-based business already has a fettered fund-of-funds proposition run by its multi-asset group made up of Nick Mustoe (chief investment officer), Bob Yerbury (fund manager), Nick Hamilton (head of global equity products) and Arwel Green (product manager).
The team runs the £205m Managed Income and the £227m Managed Growth funds, launched in February and November 1997 respectively.
On 20 February this year it launched multi-asset Balanced Risk, 6, 8 and 10 funds run by the Invesco global asset allocation team, based in Atlanta and led by CIO Scott Wolle. They invest in just three asset classes – bonds, equities and commodities.
More details will follow as soon as we are able to speak with Craig Newman, Invesco Perpetual’s sales director, who is currently unavailable for comment.
