Deutsche to merge LPT teams

The Chinese wall between Deutsche Asset Management’s (DeAM) Paladin and Sentinel Australian listed property trust (LPT) teams will come down next month, when the two merge.

The two teams of three will become one team of four managing $2.3 billion, lead by Danny Ekins from the Sentinel side.

The timing of the merger was prompted by the imminent retirement of Paladin head, Andrew Stubing, DeAM chief investment officer Andrew Fay told Money Management.

“Our research of the LPT market was telling us we’d have to do it anyway, Andrew’s retirement on February 28 meant it was a good time to make the break,” Fay said.

Sentinel analysts David Curtis and Chris Robinson have been retained in the new team, as has Paladin’s Mark Ferguson, but a third Paladin analyst has been retrenched.

The increasing complexity of Australian LPTs, many of which now incorporate property management and development arms, as well as growing offshore interests, was creating too much work for a three-person team, according to Fay.

“Our guys here also need to work closely with DeAM’s US property manager, RREEF, and they were getting doubled-up requests for everything.”

Fay said the new Australian LPT fund would not lose any ability to outperform, despite now managing almost 3 per cent of the $75 billion LPT market, but it would be closed to new institutional mandates. It will continue to be available to the retail market through master trusts.