Henderson appoints Malta partner under new global network strategy

Atlas JMFS Investment Services’ recent appointment as Henderson Global Investors’ local representative falls under the investment management group’s new strategy to build a global partner network, international business development director Giorgio Giovannini told The Sunday Times.

One of Europe’s largest investment managers, Henderson has just appointed a local partner in Chile and is examining the potential of naming representatives in Portugal and Israel, Mr Giovannini said.

In the wake of its Henderson representative appointment, Atlas JMFS Investment Services last Tuesday launched nine sub-funds of the Henderson Horizon Funds – eight equity funds and one bond fund.

The equity funds include a China fund, an Asia fund, three European equity funds, besides a technology fund, a properties equities fund, and a future industries fund. The bond fund is a Euro Corporate Bond fund investing primarily in investment grade bonds.

The Henderson Horizon Fund is advertised in Malta under the UCITS European fund directive.

New Star Asset Management, the company acquired by Henderson last year, already had a relationship with Jesmond Mizzi Financial Services which, Mr Giovannini said, the group decided to expand almost immediately.

Mr Giovannini said it was decided to launch the Horizon Fund Sicav in Malta because it was “the classic European product for European countries”.

“It is simple to understand. It is domiciled in Luxembourg and the authorisation process was straightforward. We are now thinking of having some open-ended investment companies authorised here next year. They are generally UK-domiciled and are passportable,” he added.

The UCITS III-compliant Sicav is administered by BNP Paribas, which is also the custodian of the fund, ensuring a separation between asset manager and administrator.

“We have a very good chain: a local distributor with whom clients can deal, a UK asset manager running the single sub-funds, and a UK-based custodian and transfer agent taking care of the administrative things like daily price,” Mr Giovannini said, adding that both Henderson and Atlas JMFS were focused on being increasingly client-facing.

“We have never had problems of liquidity or ‘liquidability’ of shares in 10 years. We provide information at all levels and are highly transparent. Henderson can prove that it did not suffer any disaster during the crisis.

“We had a period when we are performing better in some sub-funds. This year we had fantastic performance with the Euro Corporate Bond. We have seen client disappointment but it was never a disaster. We win mandates from institutional investors and lose mandates, just like in another other normal relationship.”

Mr Mizzi added that the Horizon funds will be marketed to retail and institutional clients, but the Valletta firm will maintain an open architecture with other products that are suitable to specific investors.

The funds were chosen with local clients in mind: Although Maltese investors were largely bond-oriented many were keen to diversify their portfolios with equity investments.

The Henderson Group traces its origins to a company founded in 1934 to administer the estate of Alexander Henderson. It started to manage pension assets in 1975. Based in London but incorporated in Jersey and tax-resident in Ireland, Henderson is dually listed on the London Stock Exchange and the Australian Securities Exchange.

Henderson Global Investors’ client portfolio includes institutional, retail and high net worth individual investors.

Last September, it had €68.4 billion assets under management and 118,000 shareholders worldwide. It employs 960 staff across Europe, the US, and Asia Pacific; 234 are investment professionals.

Turning to the macro-economic environment’s impact on investor portfolios, Henderson investment director Brigid Jackson said policymakers continued to walk a tightrope through the crisis as they worked to reach stable growth.

“The market wants to see some proper resolution to issues in the eurozone particularly,” Ms Jackson told The Sunday Times.

“That might lead to restructuring of debt with repayments stretched over longer periods. There might be more rigorous and punitive controls placed on member countries. And rather than this emergency collection of funds for Greece and Ireland, there might be a more permanent bailout mechanism in place in the future. The markets are being quite logical in a way, and they are trying to push Europe to a sustainable resolution.”

Ms Jackson believes the eurozone will see very slow growth over the next five years and the markets will remain volatile as investors monitored governments’ and central banks’ reaction to developments.

“The question I am asked constantly is: When are bond yields going to rise? It is very hard to say. Not least because all the actions that central banks around the world have taken are untested. Central bankers will tighten policy very gradually, but they walk a tightrope between not doing it quickly enough and leaving it too long,” she said.