Nikko Asset Management hires global equity team

Japanese fund house Nikko Asset Management has hired six portfolio managers from Scottish Widows Investment Partnership to focus on active global equity.

The team joined on August 1 and is based in Edinburgh. It is led by William Low and comprises Stephen Corr, James Kinghorn, Greig Bryson, Iain Fulton and Johnny Russell.

This is the first time Nikko AM has covered global equities using a specialised team, confirms a company spokeswoman, saying this is a pure enhancement of its investment team.

Low has previously worked at BlackRock, where he led a Europe, Australasia and Far East (Eafe) team. He moved to Scottish Widows Investment Partnership (now owned by Aberdeen Asset Management) in 2011 to manage Eafe mandates.

At Nikko AM, Low’s team will manage benchmark-agnostic long-only global equity portfolios, working closely with the firm’s London office. They will prepare to launch these portfolios this autumn, confirmed a spokeswoman.

The global equity team will also liaise with Nikko AM’s Asian equity team, which is based in Singapore and Sydney and led by Peter Sartori. That Asian equity capability was added last October when the firm acquired an eight-strong team from Treasury Asia Asset Management.

Their efforts will also feed into the firm’s multi-asset strategies, a product lineup that Nikko AM is aiming to bolster. Earlier this year, Nikko AM hired Al Clark in the newly created role of global head of multi-asset based in Sydney.

“We are delighted that Nikko Asset Management will be the new home for our team,” said Low in a statement. “We clearly share a vision for making global equities a key source of growth for the overall firm.”

All investment staff report to Wang Yu-Ming, global head of investment and international CIO, based in Tokyo. He told AsianInvestor that the firm's Asian, Australian, New Zealand and Japan equity teams would all be working alongside the global equity team in sharing ideas and research.

Nikko Asset Management had $158 billion in AUM as at March 31 this year.