He is an Asia Pacific income expert and is best known for running the £4bn Newton Asian Income fund, a serial winner of the Portfolio Adviser Fund Manager Awards for the Asia Pacific ex Japan category.
Asia is an obvious hole in Jupiter’s equity fund capability, with its range limited to Ben Surtees’ Jupiter Asian Fund, launched in 1988 with £40m in assets, and Simon Somerville’s 10-year old Japan Income fund with just over £500m in assets.
Pastures new
Pidcock, currently on gardening leave, is being brought in to build up an Asian Income strategy and is seen as a good fit by analysts, including Amaya Assan, senior investment research analyst at Square Mile, who cites his stock-picking expertise and experience in particular.
According to a spokesperson for Jupiter, his income-based, larger capitalisation investment strategy will complement the more growth-oriented and multi-cap strategies currently available from the firm’s emerging market product range run by Ross Teverson.
Teverson was recruited from Standard Life Investments a year ago as head of global emerging market equities and poaching Pidcock is a serious statement of intent on his part.
Chickens and eggs
In a statement released this morning, “following a strategic review” Newton Investment Management is combining its emerging market and Asian equity teams under investment manager Rob Marshall-Lee.
Which came first, the review or Pidcock’s resignation is not clear but suffice to say that he is leaving behind a team that under Marshall-Lee includes seven investment professionals supported by 20 global sector analysts and four environmental, social and governance (ESG) analysts.
The Asia Pacific ex Japan Equity, Asian Equity Income, Global Emerging Markets Equity and Emerging Equity Income fund will now all be run with a team-based approach.
