Zurich Financial Services Australia has appointed boutique manager Renaissance Asset Manager to run its specialist listed property securities managed fund, which has more than $240 million under advice.
This appointment is in line with Zurich’s ‘strategic partnership model’ but was triggered by Deutsche Asset Management’s merger of its Paladin and Sentinel Australian listed property trust (LPT) teams in February this year.
Zurich’s national sales manager Martin Scott said the merger prompted Zurich to “look around in the market” for a replacement for Sentinel, the products of which Zurich distributed.
“The upshot is we’ve decided to move our sector product funds under administration to Renaissance, while retaining Deutsche to run our $300 million in diversified money for managed growth and our balanced funds,” he said.
As of June this year, Zurich had $6.2 billion in funds under management in both diversified and sector specialist products, managed through its strategic investment partnerships model.
Renaissance joins Constellation (Australian equities) and Lazard (international equities) as specialist managers to have been appointed under the Zurich model.
Scott said Zurich was also planning to appoint a specialist manager in the high yield area “hopefully by the end of this year or first quarter next year”, as well as a global property manager.
“These appointments would probably complete our short-term needs, although we would still look at other potential asset classes, possibly in the alternate space,” he said.
Renaissance, launched in June 2003 by former BT and Sagitta investment staffers David Fleming and Carlos Cocaro, has “all the attributes we want to bring forward”, Scott said.
“They are very well rated by various asset consultants, including van Eyk, as well as strong processes, a strong team and the capacity to grow.”
Asked what flows Zurich would be chasing under the new partnership, Scott said Renaissance “hopes to close when they have 2.5 percent of the actual market, and we’d be looking to help them complete that as soon as possible”.
