St James’s Place
The wealth manager has hired Kunal Oak as director of investment products, beginning this October.
Oak joins SJP with 22 years of experience across investment management, insurance, and consulting. Most recently, Oak was director of investments at Aviva Wealth, responsible for investment strategy, propositions, governance and asset transitions.
Prior to this he held various positions at Aviva Investors including as head of product strategy and solutions. He started his career at Deloitte.
Square Mile
The firm has added Ittan Ali as research manager and Martin Ward as senior investment research analyst to its research and consulting team.
Ali, who will cover the analysis of alternatives and specialist strategies, was last with digital investment company Collidr as head of research. Previously, he worked as a senior portfolio manager at Sandair and Maxcap Partners, now Holbein Partners. In his over-20 year career, Ali also held roles at Schroders, Majedie Asset Management and Utilico.
Ward brings 13 years of experience in finance with his last role at Coutts as a senior fund analyst across equity and fixed income. He also worked with Psigma Investment Management through its merger with Punter Southall Financial Management.
Royal London Asset Management
Equities head Peter Rutter has exited the firm alongside portfolio managers Chris Parr, Will Kenney, James Clarke and Niko de Walden.
The group are expected to set up their own firm.
Rutter joined the firm in 2017 after five years as a global equities director at Waverton Investment Management.
As a result, RLAM has restructured its global equities team with CIO Piers Hillier taking on leadership responsibilities.
He will be supported by head of quant strategies Matt Burgess, co-head of UK equities Richard Marwood and head of sustainable Mike Fox.
Fund Managers Bixuan Xu and George Crowdy, and assistant fund manager Simon Davies will also support the team.
Aviva Investors
The firm has appointed Mathew Parker as a portfolio manager within its UK equities team.
Based in London, he will be co-manager on both the £193m Aviva Investors UK Equity Unconstrained strategy, and the £163.8m Aviva Investors UK Small and Mid-Cap strategy.
Parker joins the firm from Columbia Threadneedle, where he led the firm’s UK All Cap and UK Mid Cap equity strategies for the CT Universal Multi-Asset Portfolios range.
HSBC
HSBC is the latest addition to the group of eight FTSE 100 companies which have changed leader in 2024, with group chief executive Noel Quinn announcing his retirement today (30 April).
Quinn, who made the announcement as HSBC released its first quarter results, has held the position for the past five years. The board stated that it has begun a review process of both internal and external candidates as his replacement, though the timeline is not yet clear.
“It has been a privilege to lead HSBC. I never imagined when I started 37 years ago that I would have the honour of becoming group chief executive of this great bank,” Quinn said.
