Manulife Asset Management, the investment management arm of Manulife, has bolstered its Global Asset Allocation team.
Nathan Thooft, head of global asset allocation, said today that the team has added three new members, promoted two existing team members to portfolio managers, named a head of Macroeconomic Strategy, and named a head of asset allocation in Canada.
“One of our key priorities moving forward is continuing to strengthen the solutions we offer clients in Asia, Canada, Europe and US through multi-asset strategies, leveraging both proprietary and non-proprietary alpha streams,” says Chris Conkey, President and CEO of Manulife Asset Management. “Multi-asset solutions are a growth area for our company and the industry as a whole. We are one of the pioneers in this space and we look forward to continuing to be one of its leaders.”
“For more than 20 years, we have successfully managed multi-asset, multi-style, multi- manager portfolios with a consistent, proven investment process,” Thooft says. “We will continue to leverage this approach as the asset allocation space evolves and grows.”
While much of the company’s solutions success has been in the retail, advisor-sold market, opportunities are growing rapidly in the institutional, custom, and model delivery offerings. “Focus areas for growth include target date and other retirement solutions, model delivery and advisory solutions, and outcome-oriented and multi-asset income solutions across the risk spectrum,” Thooft said.
“These new hires and promotions afford us the opportunity to take advantage of these growth opportunities and further position ourselves as leaders in the multi-asset space,” says Thooft. “We’re adding highly talented and experienced investment professionals to continually better serve a growing range of clients.”
Bruce Picard, Model Portfolio Lead, is responsible for leading investment efforts to expand model delivery and custom solution capabilities. Picard has more than 25 years of investment experience most recently building and leading multi asset efforts at Mass Mutual, including overseeing a multi-manager platform and asset allocation strategies.
Geoffrey Kelley, Portfolio Manager, joins from State Street Global Advisors and will contribute to the research and investment decision-making process across a wide variety of global, multi-asset strategies, including target-risk, target-date, and other outcome-oriented portfolios. He has nearly 25 years of investment experience, including direct equity and fixed income portfolio management, a strong institutional target date background, a tenured research focus on retirement solutions, and deep knowledge in strategic and dynamic asset allocation.
David Kobuszewski, Senior Investment Analyst, who also joins from State Street, has more than 15 years of investment experience in multi-asset and fixed income investing. He has a strong background in strategic and tactical asset class forecasting approaches and factor-based and risk premia research, which will further bolster the team’s efforts in these areas.
Jamie Robertson has been named head of asset allocation in Canada. Robertson is responsible for overseeing the Canadian asset allocation franchise, including portfolio management, research and development, and supporting product development and business development.
Frances Donald, who joined the team as a senior economist in 2016, has been promoted to Head of Macroeconomic Strategy. She and her staff provide global macroeconomic investment analysis to further enhance the team’s investment process. They also support the organisation’s other investment teams globally.
Rob Sykes and Chris Walsh have been promoted to portfolio manager. Sykes and Walsh handle portfolio management of multi-asset portfolios and conduct fundamental research across various asset classes and investment strategies. Sykes, who joined the company in 2008, previously was at FactSet Research Systems and at Fidelity Investments. Walsh, who joined the company in 2009, previously was at Putnam Investments.
