Threadneedle has won a fixed income mandate in Australia.
Global asset manager Threadneedle International has won a $160 million institutional mandate in Australia for its fixed income strategy.
"We have won our first institutional mandate, in the fixed income space," Threadneedle Australia head of distribution David Chinnery said.
Chinnery could not say who the institutional investor was, but did say it was not an industry superannuation fund.
"We are still concluding it at the moment. It is signed but we are still doing the on-boarding process," he said.
He also said it was having ongoing discussions with investors about its global equity fund.
"We are starting to get some traction. We are getting feedback from the market that our global equity offering probably makes the most sense in the current environment," he said.
"We are yet to be awarded a mandate, but we have ongoing discussions."
Threadneedle set up an Australian office in Brisbane in 2008, after it acquired an Australian asset-backed security (ABS) business, which invests predominantly in residential mortgage-backed securities.
The ABS team won two institutional mandates in 2010 and is now running $1.2 billion in Australian mandates.
"Our strategy is now to improve it from our ABS capacity to include our funds in London," Chinnery said.
The firm is also looking to get a foot in the door with the retail market and has relocated Threadneedle Investments head of southern sales James Wesley from its London office to Brisbane to drive this strategy.
"To further our commitment in the domestic market we have brought down James Wesley, who has been with Threadneedle for seven years in London, to join me and make it a distribution team of two," Chinnery said.
"It clearly states our commitment to increase our footprint not just in the institutional space, but also in the fund-of-fund and platform market in Australia.
"James has spent the last seven years working in the retail business in the UK, which is very similar to the structure that we have here with the platform market in Australia."
The firm was now conducting a review of whether it would take on the retail distribution itself or partner with a distributor, he said.
"We are conducting a review at the moment," he said.
