Gam Investments has hired another heavy hitter from Blackrock to fill a newly created senior role in its equity team.
Former Blackrock director and European equities product strategist Matt Williams (pictured) has been appointed head of equity investment specialists at the Swiss fund group.
Williams, who joined the business on 1 December, is based in London and reports to head of discretionary investment Greg Clerkson.
He had been on sabbatical from Blackrock since June 2019 after seven years at the $7.4trn asset manager, according to his Linkedin profile. Prior to that he held equity research roles at MF Global, HSBC and Capital Group and focused on debt capital markets at Commerzbank and Bank of America. He began his career as a trader for Deutsche Bank in 1997.
In his newly created role he is responsible for leading Gam’s team of equity investment specialists and will help “further articulate” their strategies and “further enhance client understanding of Gam’s equity offering,” a press release announcing his appointment said.
Clerkson said there was scope for Gam to expand its equities business.
“A number of our equity strategies have strongly outperformed their benchmarks and are amongst the top performers in their peer groups over five years, demonstrating the benefits of an active investment approach in dealing with unprecedented market conditions,” Clerkson said.
“There is potential for us to build on this and Matt will be instrumental in helping us harness and maximise our equity capabilities to provide the investment leadership, innovation and sustainable thinking required to meet our clients’ needs.”
Gam Blackrock alumni keeps growing
Williams is the latest Blackrock alumnus to land at Gam. In July the Swiss fund group poached Blackrock’s UK retail boss Jeremy Roberts to fill the gap left by former group head of sales and distribution Tim Rainsford who left to join Generali Investment Partners in September.
Gam CEO Peter Sanderson is himself a Blackrock vet, having spent nearly 15 years at the asset manager, as is COO Steve Rafferty who Sanderson roped in shortly after taking up his post in September 2019.
Under Sanderson Gam has been working hard to reinvent the business and reverse the tide of outflows since the suspension and subsequent high profile dismissal of fund manager Tim Haywood and the liquidation of his £8.5bn absolute return bond fund range.
The Swiss manager unveiled a CHF 2.0m (£1.7m) pre-tax loss in the six months to June as Covid took its toll despite its aggressive cost cutting efforts, including axing over 100 jobs.
All its major investment strategies have been continued leaking cash with its funds reporting CHF 9bn in net outflows over H1, followed by CHF 2.4bn of redemptions in Q3.
Earlier this year Paras Bakrania and Davide Petrachi were hired as head of Gam Systematic Product Specialists and head of product specialists for Gam Investment Solutions respectively.
