Gresham House has appointed River and Mercantile founding partner Richard Staveley as managing director in its strategic public equity team.
Staveley (pictured) has more than two decades of fund management experience, most recently at Majedie Asset Management, where he spent six years running UK smaller companies equities products.
He announced his departure from Majedie in January, having joined in 2013 to run the UK small cap strategy.
Prior to this, he was a founding partner of River and Mercantile Asset Management, responsible for the UK small company and UK income funds. He has also worked as head of UK small companies at Société Générale Asset Management.
In this newly-created role, Staveley will work alongside the existing team led by head of strategic equity Graham Bird and act as co-fund manager on funds within Gresham House’s strategic public equity division.
Experienced investor
AJ Bell head of active portfolios Ryan Hughes described Staveley as an “experienced investor” who “knows his way around UK smaller companies extremely well”.
He added: “Having announced his departure from Majedie at the start of the year, Gresham House seems like a good home for him given his small cap focus and the clear capability that Gresham House has in this space following its purchase of Livingbridge.”
Willis Owen head of personal investing Adrian Lowcock said: “Richard is perhaps not as well-known a name as some in the fund management industry but he has a lot of experience in investing in smaller companies.”
Building small cap expertise
Gresham House started building its public and private micro and small cap expertise in November 2018 when it acquired Livingbridge’s UK funds business, including its VCT business and two open-ended products managed by Ken Wotton, Livingbridge Microcap and UK Multi Cap Income.
Lowcock said the hire of Staveley is a further “sign of intent” from Gresham House that it is looking to further establish itself in the smaller companies space.
“Staveley has significant experience investing in UK smaller companies which should benefit Gresham but also brings with him equity income investment experience which is useful when looking to protect investors capital.”
Growing quickly
Chelsea Financial Services managing director Darius McDermott described Gresham House as a “very interesting business and very much in a growth phase”. “They acquired part of the Livingbridge businesses last year, again with a focus on small and unlisted companies,” he said.
Hughes said: “Gresham House appears to be growing quickly and has evolved into a specialist asset manager since their change of strategy in 2014 with an interesting mix of public and private equity as well as alternative assets such as energy and forestry.
“With the changing nature of asset management, boutiques managers such as Gresham House have to demonstrate where they have a competitive advantage to compete against the established players and smaller companies is certainly an area where specialist expertise can be a real differentiator.”
Gresham House chief executive officer Tony Dalwood added: “We see significant investment opportunity and growth ahead for strategic public equity, particularly after the joint venture with Aberdeen Standard Investments. I look forward to working with him in this specialist investment area.”
