Research house van Eyk’s chief executive Mark Thomas has revealed the company is preparing to purchase two businesses, after it made around 10 staff redundant as part of an ongoing restructure.
“We’re very close on a couple of acquisitions. One is of a consulting nature and there is another business which we are very close to acquiring that’s more around investment databases,” Thomas said.
Van Eyk yesterday announced redundancies across areas including investment research, sales, product and information technology.
Among those let go were senior quantitative investment analyst Stephen Garner and junior investment analyst Jilly Wong, while head of distribution Michael Angwin opted for voluntary redundancy.
Garner was formerly a Queensland Investment Corporation quantitative strategist who had been hired by the research house earlier in the year.
Thomas said the redundancies were made due to changing market conditions and to ensure the research house remained relevant to the evolving needs of its clients following the financial crisis.
The recent loss of the Count and Westpac contracts had not prompted the decision to cut staff, he said.
“This process was well in train before those decisions were made. However, they have underlined why we need to pursue this strategy to ensure van Eyk remains at the cutting edge of asset consulting and research,” he said.
Thomas said van Eyk was focused on recruiting people with securities and capital markets backgrounds.
“All the senior research guys including head of research John O’Brien and my general manager Jeff Hall are still here,” he said.
“We added another person to our consulting team, Jonathan Ramsay, and we are also in the process of recruiting a senior analyst in the equities area. We are spending money as well as saving money.”
Thomas added that Ramsay would manage van Eyk’s asset consulting team, leaving the division’s head Melissa Randall to focus on the strategic development of the asset consulting business.
He said while the contract losses with Count and Westpac were disappointing, losses are sometimes unavoidable.
“When you are a large organisation in terms of market share like us you are always going to have some changes in your book. We had our losses and we will take it on the chin,” he said.
