Schroders reveals replacement as Andrew Rose retires

Schroders has revealed Masaki Taketsume will take over its £2.3bn Tokyo fund and £235.6m Japan Growth investment trust as one of the firm’s most senior fund managers prepares to retire and the portfolio management team shifts its base to London.

Andrew Rose (pictured) started his career at Schroders in 1981, but will leave the industry at the end of June 2019.

Taketsume relocated to London in 2017 as part of the team’s succession planning and has been working on portfolio management with Rose, also based in London, since 2014. The analyst team in Tokyo will continue to feed into the respective funds, Schroders confirmed.

Schroder Tokyo performance

Source: FE Analytics

Local expertise welcomed for Japanese equities

Willis Owen head of personal investing Adrian Lowcock said they rate Schroder Tokyo alongside Man GLG Japan CoreAlpha, which is co-managed by Stephen Harker, who he said has comparable breadth and depth of experience in Japanese equities to Rose. Jeff Atherton and Neil Edwards also co-manage the Man GLG fund, which won Platinum for Japanese equities at the PA Fund Awards 2019.

Lowcock said because Japan is culturally very different to the UK and English isn’t spoken as widely as some other international centres, it was encouraging to see someone who is Japanese take the helm of the fund. “A lot can be lost in translation and cultural nuances,” he said.

At the same time, he said it was not essential for the team to remain based in Tokyo thanks to technology. Plus a Japanese speaker would easily be able to conduct conference calls from a London base, he said. “It’s clear Schroders have had succession planning in place for some time and that gives you some confidence,” he said.

In the investment trusts space, he likes JPMorgan Japanese, run by Nicholas Weindling, who has a quality-growth style.

‘One of the most senior fund managers at Schroders’

Tilney managing director Jason Hollands said Rose’s career was “long and illustrious” and that Schroders has a well-resourced Japanese equities team, although he was not familiar with Taketsume. “As one of the most senior fund managers at Schroders, this will be an important handover and it looks like the firm have been preparing for this for some time.”

Investment director Nathan Gibbs, who moved to London from Japan in 2016, will support Taketsume, who has been with Schorders more than a decade.

Neither Schroder Tokyo or the Schroder Japan Growth Fund are on Tilney’s buy list, Morant Wright Nippon Yield and Baillie Gifford Japanese Equities are its preferred funds for accessing the Asian country.

Hollands said the relocation of Taketsume and Gibbs was likely because Schroders wanted the team to be closer to clients and potential clients, plus the board of the investment trust.

Schroder Japan Growth investment trust performance

Source: FE Analytics