Staff departures continue at Colonial First State (CFS) with senior portfolio manager of Australian equities Anthony Vourdanos resigning from the company.
It is the fourth staff departure for the business since the beginning of this year. In June CFS lost its Australian equities head Simon Shields to rival UBS and his deputy, Jim Taylor, migrated to BT Financial Group. A third senior staffer, Justin Lannen, left CFS in February.
Vourdanos joined CFS in 2001 and jointly managed the small cap strategy in 2002 with senior portfolio manager Tom Plodr.
Vourdanos will be replaced by senior portfolio manager Peter McGann. McGann has worked with CFS and the Commonwealth Bank for more than 10 years.
"It is pleasing to have the depth of talent at Colonial which comes with a large and experienced equity team and is well supported by a strong focus on succession planning," Colonial First State Global Asset Management chief investment officer David Dixon said.
The CFS Small Companies Core Fund has returned 39.28 per cent per annum over the three years to July 31 2007, compared to the index of 29.57 per cent, according to Morningstar research.
