Earlier this year, it was announced that the former head of equities at UK-based Royal London Asset Management (RLAM), Peter Rutter, would be leaving with his team to set up their own boutique global equities fund manager.
This would be an affiliate of Australian-based Pinnacle Investment Management called Lifecycle Investment Partners, that would invest in style-neutral, long-only global equities.
Australian firm Ironbark has held a mandate with RLAM for many years on its global equities funds: Ironbark Royal London Concentrated Global Share Fund, Concentrated Global Share Fund – Class H (Hedged), Core Global Share fund – Class A, and Core Global Share Fund – Class H.
According to Morningstar, its Ironbark Royal London Concentrated Global Share Fund, launched in 1996, is $2.1 billion in size; the Core Global Share Fund – Class A is $779 million; its Core Global Share fund – Class H is $131 million, and the Concentrated Global Share fund – Class H is $86 million, totalling $2.96 billion.
At the time of Rutter’s departure, Ironbark originally backed him and said it intended to take the assets over to his new firm when it was formally launched. However, delays mean the firm now has been forced to look elsewhere, it said.
“We anticipated that Peter and his investment team would be able to manage the assets within their new structure by August 2024. While we have been working closely with Pinnacle, we have come to understand that Peter and his investment team will not be in a position to manage the funds within a time frame that Ironbark considers to be in the best interests of investors.”
In Pinnacle’s FY2023–24 results earlier this month, Pinnacle founder and managing director Ian Macoun flagged that the team has employment restraints from RLAM which limit the work they can do.
“It is early days; these employees have employment restraints that they have to honour so we won’t see much activity in this calendar year. It takes time to build a new boutique and we build carefully and deliberately,” Macoun said.
“This should be a very big, successful boutique over time, and we will do it at the pace that makes sense for building a quality affiliate. We will update in due course, but we tend to go slowly and carefully at the beginning.”
As a result, Ironbark has appointed American investment manager Brown Advisory and international asset manager Robeco to the funds instead.
“Ironbark maintains a shortlist of alternative ‘best-in-class’ investment managers, and following a thorough due diligence process, we have selected Robeco and Brown Advisory to be the appointed investment managers of the core and concentrated funds, respectively. Both managers are well-experienced to manage the assets of the funds and can do so within a time frame that is in the best interests of investors.
“Ironbark intends to appoint a transition manager in the coming weeks to support an orderly transition of the fund’s assets to the appointed investment managers. Ironbark anticipates the transition will be finalised in late September 2024.”
