Australian-based alternative asset manager, Aurora Funds Management has announced that Tony Hartnell will join its board as an independent director.
The group said it continued to focus on rebuilding Aurora to become a sustainable funds management business, with the key areas of focus for the group being investor returns and correcting public perception, particularly around its corporate governance.
Following this, the firm said that the priority was that investors and the wider market would see it as a “truly independent, professional and proficient funds management business.”
In this context, the appointment of Hartnell as its new independent director to the Aurora board was an important step towards the development of transparency, professionalism and independence, it said.
Aurora’s current ownership group, which bought the business in June, 2016, when it was in distress, said it sought to keep it independent.
“However, an impression has apparently been formed in some parts of the market that the business is associated with, in particular, its former owner Keybridge,” the company said in an announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX).
“Despite Keybridge retaining the management rights of one of Aurora’s funds (HHY fund), and Aurora complying with its obligations under that arrangement, that impression is not correct.’
According to the company, the unfortunate impression was additionally entrenched by recent findings in the takeover panel where share acquisitions in an ASX company, Molopo Energy, by each of Aurora and Keybridge had to be unwound.
Also, the group had to deal with challenges associated with a financial theft, that resulted in the immediate termination of its long standing chief financial officer Betty Poon.
