RWC ramps up senior hiring spree
fund boutique RWC Partners has continued its high profile push into more mainstream business with two senior fund manager hires from larger rival Threadneedle.
The London-based firm yesterday said it had hired Peter Allwright and Stuart Frost to take over the $70m (£46.8m) RWC Strategic Reserve fund and launch two new funds later in the year as they build a fixed income absolute return business.
The hires follow the recruitment of top-performers Nick Purves and Ian Lance from Schroders in May to run an income fund. Soon afterwards, Schroders bought a 49 per cent stake in RWC. RWC said that while the Strategic Reserve fund targets returns of three per cent over cash, the new vehicles to be launched by the ex-Threadneedle pair will have higher targets and will be free to adopt less cautious strategies.
At Threadneedle, Allwright and Frost managed Absolute Return bond portfolios with assets of more than $3bn. They were also co-managers on the Target Return Fund.
RWC is a fund management minnow compared with the rivals from which it has poached staff. It has $2bn in assets while Schroders has $168bn and Threadneedle around $64bn.