Aviva Investors hires Asia credit head

After three months as a fixed-income portfolio management consultant to Aviva Investors, Tim Jagger has joined the UK firm in Singapore on a permanent basis.

A credit specialist who has spent most of his career on the sell-side, Jagger left the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) in December. He has taken up the role of senior vice-president and Asia fixed-income portfolio manager at Aviva Investors, with a focus on credit.

Tim joined as a consultant in March and was appointed to a full time role on June 15, says Kevin Talbot, CIO for Asia-Pacific fixed income. "Given our strength globally in the high-yield sector and our recent success in winning local fixed-income mandates," he adds, "we decided to appoint a full-time senior portfolio manager to the fixed-income team."

Jagger is responsible for managing the firm's Asian high-yield portfolios, including carrying out country, sector, industry, security and currency selection. He is also responsible for ensuring that the appropriate bottom-up research is undertaken and documented.

Asked whether more fixed-income hires are likely, Talbot tells AsianInvestor: "With the growing strength and diversity in the Asian credit segment, we expect that our fixed-income team is likely to grow."

Jagger was most recently Asia-Pacific head of credit strategy at RBS in Singapore, having relocated from London in August 2009. As such, he was responsible for credit market strategy and a portfolio of single names across investment grade and high yield.

He joined the bank in London in 2000 as co-head of investment-grade corporate credit research, before being promoted to head of corporate credit strategy.

Aviva Investors has been aggressively hiring investment and sales staff since appointing Tahnoon Pasha as Singapore chief executive in May 2010. It further ramped up its expansion in the Lion City following the sale of its Australian equities business in the middle of last year.