Challenger’s loss is MFS’ gain

Steve Kyling’s departure after six years at Challenger Howard Mortgage Trust has seen Lonsec downgrade the product, while his new employers, MFS, have coincidentally had their mortgage trust recommended by the research house.

Challenger’s fund has been downgraded from ‘highly recommended’ to ‘recommended’, with Lonsec analyst Anthony Pesutto blaming the manager’s failure to replace Kyling with a dedicated and experienced mortgage manager.

Instead, Brian Benari will now run the fund among a number of other responsibilities in Challenger’s $17 billion finance business.

“Lonsec notes [Benari] has not previously managed a mortgage fund…in contrast, Lonsec’s most highly-rated mortgage managers (Perpetual, Australian Unity and Colonial First State) have full-time portfolio managers with an average 26 years of lending and portfolio management experience”.

Kyling will now run MFS’ flagship Premium Income Fund, which coincidentally received an initial ‘recommended’ rating from Lonsec on the same day as Challenger’s mark-down.

Pesutto, who said Kyling’s move had nothing to do with the MFS rating, added the Premium Income Fund, which launched in late 2000, was held back from the highest rating because it was yet to experience a full property cycle and had only last year began accepting dealer group inflows.