Kemp will join Morningstar Investment Management EMEA on Monday as co-head of investment consulting and portfolio management. He formed ASP less than two years ago with Clive Hale and Sam Liddle, who left earlier this year to Church House Investments.
FundCalibre, a joint-venture between ASP and Chelsea Financial Services, is currently being approved by the FCA and remains on target to launch at the end of July.
Targeted at all investors seeking validation and guidance on investment funds, the business will now go ahead run by six members of Chelsea Financial Services’ research team, supported by Albermarle’s Hale and Raj Hallen, Kemp’s replacement.
“I think that Morningstar Investment Management has a massive opportunity to help IFAs and other clients and I’m looking forward to helping them with that,” Kemp said.
“My job will be to help that business develop from an investment management and consulting perspective. It’s a very substantial business in the US, but in the UK and Europe we are less well known for helping advisers and clients so we are looking to raise that profile and give people more access to the resources of Morningstar”.
Hale stressed that FundCalibre is unaffected by Kemps’s departure: “The intellectual capital in AlphaQuest, which drives our Elite fund rating service, remains within the company and we are looking forward to working with our partners at Chelsea and the fund management groups that have supported us so far.”
Darius McDermott, managing director, Chelsea Financial Services added: “[FundCalibre] has taken a little longer than expected, but we are extremely excited to be in the final stages of regulatory approval and are now focused on completing the website prior to launch, which we hope will be before the end of July.
“There have been some personnel changes at Albemarle since we started out on this venture, but the investment process, supported by AlphaQuest, the tool which sits at the heart of FundCalibre’s quantitative analysis, and the philosophy behind Elite Fund Ratings, remain unchanged.”
