CFS wholesale funds keep ratings despite executive departures
Research house van Eyk has decided to maintain its rating of two Australian share funds managed by Colonial First State (CFS) despite the departure of senior portfolio manager Martin Littler.
Littler resigned as CFS head of core strategy in February in order to have fewer day-to-day team management responsibilities and focus more on long-short strategy, van Eyk stated.
The most recent announcement follows a meeting last week in which CFS advised van Eyk that Littler would retire this month. As a result, van Eyk put the A-rated CFS Wholesale Australian Share - Core Fund and the B-rated Wholesale Australian Share Long Short - Core Fund on hold.
Van Eyk head of ratings Matthew Olsen said despite the appointment of Matthew Reynolds to the head of equities position, the research house would continue to monitor the manager.
"It will take some time to observe how successfully they can continue to manage the strategies without Mr Littler's input," Olsen said.
Meanwhile, the CFS-distributed Aspect Diversified Futures Fund - Class A will retain its Standard and Poor's (S&P) fund rating despite the resignation of Aspect Capital's chief investment officer, Gavin Ferris. Aspect director of research Martin Lueck will assume Ferris' responsibilities, S&P said.
"Aspect's trading systems have been established for an extended period of time, and Mr Ferris' departure is viewed as mainly affecting possible future research," said S&P Fund Services Michael Armitage.
"The team approach and the scale of resourcing within Aspect's research teams minimises the effect of Ferris' departure."
Recommended for you
ASIC has launched court proceedings against the responsible entity of three managed investment schemes with around 600 retail investors.
There is a gap in the market for Australian advisers to help individuals with succession planning as the country has been noted by Capital Group for being overly “hands off” around inheritances.
ASIC has cancelled the AFSL of an advice firm associated with Shield and First Guardian collapses, and permanently banned its responsible manager.
Having peaked at more than 40 per cent growth since the first M&A bid, Insignia Financial shares have returned to earth six months later as the company awaits a final decision from CC Capital.
