Artemis has promoted Stephen Snowden to head of fixed income as James Foster leaves the business after 16 years.
Foster, who co-manages the £1.8bn Artemis Strategic Bond fund, will retire from fund management at the end of the year.
As a result Artemis has restructured its bond team, handing oversight to Snowden (pictured).
Foster’s mandates, which also includes the £800m Artemis Monthly Distribution fund, will be redistributed among several managers in Snowden’s team who followed him from Aegon Asset Management, then Kames, to Artemis in 2019.
The Strategic Bond fund will be handed to Snowden’s former Kames colleague Juan Valenzuela and Rebecca Young, who joins Artemis in November from Janus Henderson. The Monthly Distribution fund will continue to be run by Jacob de Tusch-Lec with Stephen Baines, also ex-Kames, stepping into run the bond element of the portfolio.
Alex Ralph, Foster’s co-manager on Strategic Bond since launch in June 2005, will also leave Artemis. Two other Snowden recruits, David Ennett and Jack Holmes, will take over for her on the £916.8m Artemis High Income fund which she has run on her own since March 2014.
Consolidation of Artemis fixed income teams ‘logical’
Fund buyers said Foster’s retirement was a loss for the bond market.
Tilney managing director Jason Hollands described Foster as a “well-respected fixed income manager, popular with advisers for telling it like it is”.
But he said the move to consolidate the two fixed income teams at Artemis is “logical”.
“Stephen Snowden is a highly experienced fixed income investor, with a well-resourced team in place, so investors in James and Alex’s former funds can take comfort in the fact they will remain in good hands.”
Chelsea Financial Services managing director Darius McDermott said he holds the Edinburgh-based fixed income team of Artemis, led by Snowden, “in very high regard”.
“The Strategic Bond fund will come off the Chelsea Selection, as it is being handed to a manager we are less familiar with, but the fund will have a generic ‘hold’ rating and we will revisit the rating when the team has had a chance to settle into the fund,” he added.
