Mouatt joins his former boss

Mercantile Mutual Investment Management’s head of equities Peter Mouatt is to join his former boss Greg Matthews at Macquarie Funds Management.

Mercantile Mutual Investment Management’s head of equities Peter Mouatt is to join his former boss Greg Matthews at Macquarie Funds Management.

Mouatt has been head of equities at Mercantile Mutual since Matthews vacated the post just un-der three years ago. Matthews left just prior to Merc being awarded Money Management’s Fund Manager of the Year for 1997.

The growth at a reasonable price (GARP) investment philosophy that Matthews helped create at Mercantile Mutual was also a key ingredient in Merc’s success at last year’s Money Manage-ment Fund Manager of the Year where the group picked up the coveted Australian equities crown. Merc now calls its investment process “price for growth”.

Matthews has since taken the GARP process to Macquarie but it has yet to pay off substantially.

Matthews is both chief investment officer and head of equities at Macquarie Funds Management. His role was expanded in July with the formation of Macquarie Funds Management as a separate division of Macquarie Bank. He is also now the joint head of the division with David Deverall who heads institutional sales and marketing.

Macquarie Funds Management has $21.8 billion under management including over $5.1 billion in equities funds.

Matthews says Mouatt will work closely with Macquarie’s equities team.

“We have a number of new products which will certainly benefit from his expertise," he says.

Deputy head of equities John Morgan will take over as head of equities at Mercantile Mutual. Morgan has been with Merc for 14 years, including seven years on the group’s asset allocation committee.