Allianz Global Investors has bolstered its macro unconstrained fixed income team with two hires.
Gaurav Saroliya (pictured) and Joe Pak will join as portfolio managers on the team which manages £7.5bn of assets across four strategies. They will report to head of macro unconstrained Mike Riddell and work alongside associate portfolio managers Jack Norris and Daniel Schmidt.
The team manages the £3.2bn Allianz Strategic Bond fund, the £2.5bn Allianz Gilt Yield fund, the £163m Allianz Index Linked Gilt fund and the £460m Allianz Fixed Income Macro fund.
The hires follow the departure of Kacper Brzezniak who was lead manager on the Fixed Income Macro strategy, as well as co-lead on the Strategic Bond fund and deputy manager on the Gilt Yield and Index Linked Gilt strategies.
Saroliya will join on 1 July from Oxford Economics where he was head of macro strategy. He previously worked as a strategist at Lombard Street Research, as well as at Unicredit and Lloyds Banking Group. Before that he helped manage an absolute return fixed income fund at UBP.
Joe Pak, who starts in August, joins from Rothesay Life, the UK’s largest pensions insurance specialist, where he was lead portfolio manager on a €2bn (£1.7bn) European periphery bond portfolio and on the firm’s macro absolute return portfolio which he launched in 2019. Prior to that, he was a trader on RBS’s US rates options desk.
Allianz GI said Pak’s experience lends itself particularly well the the Fixed Income Macro fund on which he will become co-lead portfolio manager. He will also become co-deputy manager on the Strategic Bond fund and deputy manager on the Gilt Yield fund.
Riddell said: “With Gaurav and Joe joining the team, we can set the direction for further growth. Both bring in a rich experience in macro-driven investing and add to the broad and very diverse skill set in our team.”
Allianz GI said team will announce the hire of an additional “experienced macro portfolio manager” in the coming weeks.
