What is your view of the impact of Brexit on Jupiter’s business going forward?
The impact we might have suffered, which in fact we don’t need to worry about as a result of Brexit, is the fact that we have a Luxembourg Sicav platform. It does not offer a full range but a broad range that covers most of the products we would want to offer on a cross-border basis.
So whatever happens with Brexit, whether there is a hard or a soft landing, this does not really matter in relation to our distribution strategy.
We have been adding capabilities on to our Luxembourg Sicav platform, such as the global absolute return strategy for James Clunie we launched earlier this year. That is already gaining good traction.
We offer global equities, Asian equities, Indian equities, emerging markets and fixed income, so we feel we have the breadth of proposition to handle any changes in what clients feel they should be allocated to.
In Jupiter’s Q3 figures there were net inflows of £0.8bn. How much did international Sicav business contribute to that figure?
A significant contribution has come from our cross-border business on to our Sicav, although the UK continues to be the key market for us.
Ariel Bezalel’s Dynamic Bond Fund has been a strong contributor in that last quarter. If you look at his asset allocation over quite a long period, you can see him making calls and changing the construction of his portfolio. People like that and the fact that he’s delivered good returns consistently.
Some of the products we have launched quite recently, for example the absolute return product on the Sicav, have been doing well for us. We have an Indian equity fund that has also been doing quite well, not to the same extent as the Dynamic Bond because it is a more niche product.
We also had a successful launch of Jason Pidcock’s Asian equity unit trust earlier in the year. We replicated it with the strategy on the Sicav in the middle of the year, and we are starting to see some traction on that.
During the course of the coming months and years we will continue to bring in established, known fund managers across different asset classes.
In terms of funds where we have seen outflows, European equities in general have taken quite a strong hit and that has been a function of the asset class post-Brexit.
How has the move into your new offices in the Zig Zag Building in London’s Victoria district changed Jupiter’s profile?
I have had a lot of really positive comments about this. The move has coincided with us bringing in new people such as Pidcock, myself and other senior hires, and it has been seen as a sign of us raising our game and really stepping up for the future.
We were on six floors at the old building and here we are on two, which keeps that family feel and ensures effective communication as we grow and expand our business.
