Fixed income analyst Victoria Hasler and Andrew Johnston, currently responsible for Asian, Japanese and European open and closed-ended funds, are set to join Square Mile in April.
Prior to joining Brewin Dolphin in February 2010, Hasler was a fixed income portfolio manager at Rothschild Private Management before which she was a fixed income analyst at Merrill Lynch Investment Managers.
Andrew Johnston, also responsible for the technology and environmental sectors, joined Brewin Dolphin in 2008 as a fund analyst after graduating from Herriot-Watt University.
Rapid growth
Square Mile is the new research firm that was set up by former OBSR stalwarts Richard Romer-Lee and Nigel Whittingham that currently has three investment professionals – Jason Broomer (as head of investments) and Marianne Weller (a fixed income specialist) who joined in January, and Alex Farlow who started on 24 February.
Farlow, a former OBSR and Morningstar colleague of Whittingham and Romer-Lee, is responsible for research into risk-based funds as well as risk-based solutions, a proposition that is very popular with intermediaries right now and is a service not previously offered at OBSR or Morningstar.
Hasler will join as the lead fixed income analyst, working closely alongside Weller.
Square Mile director Whittingham confirmed that Johnston will be an analyst “across a broad range of equity geographies” with the team overall being expanded to nine investment professionals by the end of 2013.
Countering any argument that Square Mile is expanding too quickly, Whittingham added: “In the markets we are going for, and with companies like Zurich already as a client, we need to have depth and strength in our team. We believe we need to be resourced up to a level that we can do a good job for our clients before we talk to the organisation rather than staffing up after they join us.”
Update on Matthew Butcher
Guy Foster, head of portfolio strategy at Brewin Dolphin, said he is not looking to recruit like-for-like replacements for Hasler and Johnston.
“That is not the way we tend to do it as we prefer to recruit and then develop staff who are at an earlier point in their career,” he said.
Meanwhile, he would not be draan on the question of whether a replacement has yet been found for Matthew Butcher who left as group head of research in October last year even though one source close to Brewin Dolphin's research team had said that a new head of research had been appointed but not yet announced.
He said: "No final decision has been made on who will replace Matt so there is no need to comment on who is in the frame. The Board is looking into it and as it is such a major recruitment decision they are quite rightly taking their time to find the right person."
