After 12 years with BlackRock, the promotion for Arnold has been touted as formal recognition of his work in the smaller companies team over the past 10 years.
Since Plackett took over the UK Special Sits Fund it has grown more than ten-fold from £100m to £1.4bn, and BlackRock said the appointment of Arnold would help them to "continue servicing the ever growing client base" and enable the managers to maintain focus on stock selection.
Plackett said: "Having worked closely with Roland for 10 years he was the natural choice to join me in co-managing the BlackRock UK Special Situations Fund. The Fund has grown significantly over the last eight years and the additional management resource Roland will provide will help to continue serving our growing client base.
"We enjoy debating our investment decisions and I am pleased to provide our clients with access to Roland’s long track record in managing small and mid-cap equities."
Up until now, as well as working in BlackRock’s small and mid-cap equities team, Arnold has run institutional mandates for the firm.
His composite track record over that time against the Numis Smaller Companies Index shows his relative performance is consistently ahead. Over five years per annum he has returned 3.9% more than the benchmark, according to data from BlackRock.
Plackett will continue to carry out the lead manager role on the fund and retain ultimate discretion over the portfolio, as well as managing the Throgmorton Trust and a hedge fund for the asset manager.
For more on Richard Plackett and his investment process, look out for the August issue of Portfolio Adviser magazine.
