08 February 2023
If you are covering the departures of fund managers Robin Geffen and Simon Brazier from their respective firms, please find below a comment from Nick Wood, head of fund research at Quilter Cheviot, outlining the impact for investors:
“The fund manager merry-go-round continues to spin ever faster, with this week already seeing two high profile exits. Today we heard that Neptune founder Robin Geffen is exiting Liontrust, the firm who bought Neptune in 2019. Geffen remained part of the global team at Liontrust following the acquisition. Likewise, Simon Brazier’s departure from Ninety One represents another significant industry departure. In each case, the respective asset managers will point to the broader teams behind these high profile names, but for investors in their funds, especially those that invested largely due to the skills of these individuals, this represents uncertainty.
“There has been an increasing trend of fund manager turnover in recent years and this is ultimately placing difficult decisions onto investors. The option of whether to remain with the fund or move on following a manager departure is always a hard one, and for those with little access to the remaining teams, it may be that switching to a rival fund will be the easy outcome. But the easy one is not always the correct one and it is vital that time is taken to assess replacements and strategies. So long as the fund in question continues to be managed in line with expectations then there may be no need to act at all.
“But as we continue to see further manager changes to funds alongside inevitable industry consolidation, the task of the DIY investor becomes ever harder, with track records needing to be carefully scrutinised to ensure those running the fund have not significantly changed over time.”
