TIAA hires Invesco sales trio for Asia buildout
US-based TIAA Global Asset Management has poached three institutional salespeople from rival Invesco in a move to build out an Asia team, AsianInvestor can reveal. The hires follow the set-up of a distribution office in Australia last year and are part of global expansion plans.
Simon England-Brammer, previously head of institutional for Hong Kong, Southeast Asia and Korea at Invesco, will join TIAA with two of his former team members, senior institutional sales managers Kelvin Cheung and Tan Ying Li.
England-Brammer and Cheung are currently based in Hong Kong, and Tan in Singapore.
They have not yet started in their new posts, but are expected to retain similar roles and coverage when they do. AsianInvestor was unable to ascertain whether they would remain in the same locations or what their reporting lines would be.
TIAA Global AM, renamed from TIAA-CREF Asset Management earlier this year, declined to comment on the hires.
England-Brammer had been with Invesco since April 2003, before which he worked in UK sales at Axa Framlington (at the time Framlington) and and Premier Asset Management.
Tan had joined Invesco in January 2014 from Japan’s Nikko Asset Management, where she was institutional business development director in Singapore, according to her LinkedIn page. She has also worked at Pacific Asset Management.
AsianInvestor could not confirm how long Cheung had been with Invesco or where he had worked before that.
Invesco, which was named AsianInvestor's Asset Manager of the Year in May, did not comment on the departures by press time.
The three recent departures come soon after Lindsay Wright resigned as Asia-Pacific head of institutional, alternatives and investment solutions at Invesco. She joined BNY Mellon in late May as Asia-Pacific co-head and head of distribution.
TIAA's appointments of England-Brammer, Cheung and Tan follow its hire of Andrew Kleinig in April last year to set up a distribution office in Sydney and head distribution strategy in Australia and Asia.
The firm has a history of almost a decade in the Australian market, which has to date focused on agriculture, and more recently, real estate. It has around $850 billion under management across equities, fixed income, real estate and other real assets, private equity and private credit.
Kleinig joined TIAA from Nanuk Asset Management, where he was head of sales and investor relations. He was previously a senior sales and consultant relations manager at GE Asset Management, and also held client relations roles at SEB Asset Management, Deutsche Bank and Commonwealth Bank of Australia.
TIAA’s hires in Asia form part of a global expansion of its sales team, with the firm last month adding two managing directors for its real assets institutional distribution desk in Europe, effective July 1.
Per Frederiksen moved from Dimensional Fund Advisors to focus on institutional business in the Nordic countries, while Dan Greene joined from Invesco to cover investment consultants regionally and globally.