Aust Unity revamps property business

Australian Unity has revamped its property portfolio management and appointed a new head of property.

Tory Richards has been recruited from agent FPD Savills where she was managing director. Prior to this appointment, she was Victorian state director of retail management specialists Byvan.

Richards role at Australian Unity will be to manage the fund manager's property portfolio. She will report directly to Craig Dunstan, who is general manger of financial services.

Previously Paul Noonan, property portfolio manager at Australian Unity reported directly to Dunstan, but he will now be responsible for the property securities and healthcare property funds.

Dunstan told Money Management that Noonan now reports to Richards, as does Danny Anderson, who is responsible for managing retail centres in the property portfolio.

"As we expand our property portfolio, we had to get in some more people to manage it," Dunstan says.

"We have created an additional layer of management and reduced the number of people who report directly to me."

Dunstan says in the past he had 10 people reporting directly to him on different aspects of the company's fund management operations. "This has now been reduced down to six."

Australian Unity has more than $400 million of property assets under management. This was recently boosted by the acquisition of York Capital's property syndication portfolio.