Based in Toronto, Jonathan Flegg will join the firm as its first Canada-based managing director as the firm seeks to deepen its presence in Canada and North America.
He joins from asset manager T. Rowe Price where he was the vice-president, institutional, for its Canada operation, and previously worked at asset manager CI Investments.
In the role at Pinnacle, he will lead the development of Pinnacle’s institutional and intermediary client base in Canada and work closely with US-based managing directors Jack Kirkpatrick and Alison Maschmeyer (East Coast), and Michael Putica (West Coast).
He will report to Andrew Chambers, executive director and head of institutional and international divisions, who is based back in Australia.
Currently, Pinnacle has one affiliate in Canada – small-cap equity boutique Langdon Equity Partners – and one in the US, private equity firm VSS Capital Partners. Langdon joined the Pinnacle fold in 2021 while it took a minority equity stake in VSS last year. Pinnacle managing director Ian Macoun has been vocal about how he believes international distribution will be a key way for the firm to grow and gain assets under management.
Langdon itself has been expanding and opened a London office in April as well as a UCITS version of the fund available to UK, European and select Asian jurisdictions.
Chambers said: “Jonathan joins us at a pivotal moment as we continue to grow and diversify our affiliate client base and build out our international distribution and affiliate platform.
“Following the successful establishment of Langdon Equity Partners and our recent investment in VSS Capital Partners, we remain focused on ramping up our investment in North American affiliate and distribution talent.”
Flegg added: “Canada presents a significant opportunity for Pinnacle – boutique managers remain underrepresented in professionally managed portfolios compared to other global markets, and there’s a clear and growing appetite here for differentiated, high-conviction strategies run by talented teams.”
Speaking at its half-year results earlier this year, Macoun said offshore net inflows are $0.8 billion for the six-month period, while international funds under management stand at $44.8 billion. However, he emphasised it is important for Pinnacle to take a controlled approach to expansion and remain within its core capabilities.
“The pace and size of opportunities is not limited by the opportunity set; it’s limited by our pace as we are doing this slowly and looking to work with high-quality firms. We are well aware of the risk of firms making ill-advised expansion decisions overseas, which they are ill-equipped to manage, are off their strategy or outside their core competencies.
“We are staying very closely within our core capabilities. We are confirming our target market demand before making any new ventures. The opportunity is enormous, but we are proceeding at a sensible pace. We won’t be proceeding in a haphazard or illogical way.”
Last month, Pinnacle was named as one of two Australian asset managers which reported share price growth over the last financial year of more than 40 per cent.
