Perpetual Investments has hired former 452 Capital small companies analyst Nathan Parkin as an equity analyst in the small-cap team.

Parkin will join Perpetual in October this year and will take over the stock coverage responsibilities of former industrials portfolio manager Sean Cunningham.

Cunningham will take a 12-month sabbatical from the end of October. He handed over his portfolio management responsibilities to Jack Collopy in July this year.

With the addition of Parkin, the Perpetual small companies team will consist of four members including Collopy, James Bruce and Rosemary Tan.

Parkin is no stranger to Perpetual. He started with the company as an institutional business account manager in 1997 and became head of institutional business in 2001.

Parkin joined 452 Capital, which was established by former Perpetual manager Peter Morgan, in 2003 as an equities dealer.

In the past five years, he has been working as an equities analyst covering the industrials, financials and small-cap sectors.

The future of 452 Capital has become uncertain after management in mid-August announced their intention to step down. The fund manager has also been losing a number of significant mandates.

Colonial First State, which owns 30 per cent of the firm, has replaced 452 Capital with Integrity Investment Management as the underlying manager of the 452 Australian Shares strategy. CFS Global Asset Management Core will manage the geared fund.

The changes affected $1.5 billion of 452 Capital's assets under management.