According to OMGI the promotions serve not only to reward and retain internal talent but also form part of a push to for greater specialism within the group’s 13 strong fixed income team.
Christine Johnson head of OMGI’s fixed income team said: “At OMGI we are committed to developing and retaining internal talent. Both Lloyd and Tim have a significant amount of credit expertise and I am pleased that we can offer these career development opportunities.”
Harris has been co-manager on the fund alongside Christine Johnson since May 2015 and has been a senior credit analyst at OMGI since January 2012. Johnson, will remain as deputy manager, but will now be freed up to “focus more of her time on building the OMGI fixed income business,” Old Mutual said.
According to the firm, while the change in lead manager will mean no change to the fund’s investment process or objectives, under Harris, the fund’s primary focus will be on stock picking and asset allocation, which entails a “slightly reduced emphasis towards interest rate risk.
The fund has also changed its relative benchmark from the IA Sterling Corporate Bond Sector to the iBoxx GBP Non-Gilts Index.
As a result of the change in lead manager, The Adviser Centre has removed the fund from its Recommended list.
According to Gill Hutchison, head of investment research at City Financial, while the firm has a constructive view of Harris’s abilities, especially in light of his experience and his desire to capitalise on the team’s stock picking skills, the “change of management, which brings with it a shift in management style, leads us to remove the fund from our Recommended list whilst we assess this development.”
However, she added: “The expectation is for the relative volatility of the fund to diminish, given that duration positioning will be a less dominant feature of the fund in the future.”
The other change effective from 1 December is the promotion of Barker to the newly created role of head of credit. Currently head of credit research, in his new role Barker will be responsible for managing the credit experts in the fixed income team, as well as providing guidance on asset allocation and stock selection, OMGI said.
He will also replace Bastian Wagner as co-manager of the Old Mutual Monthly Income Fund alongside Johnson, which will allow Wagner to focus on the management of the Old Mutual Monthly Income High Yield Bond Fund.
