Former Ninety One head of UK Wealth Rodger Kennedy has set up his own outsourced fund distribution company alongside Columbia Threadneedle’s Kelly Prior and Square Mile’s Steve Kenny.
He left his last role in January to launch Boutique Capital Partners after 23 years at the firm. Kennedy now intends to use his extensive connections across the UK fund buyer market to promote and distribute his partners’ investment strategies to UK intermediaries.
“Investment boutiques have faced significant headwinds in the last couple of years, not least with client consolidation and increased costs but I believe that it is always darkest before dawn,” he said.
“The industry needs new and exciting boutique fund managers to continue to emerge, allowing for highly experienced fund managers who can be agile, less constrained and deliver sought after return profiles”.
By establishing his new firm, Kennedy hopes to benefit from the ongoing trend of boutique asset managers outsourcing their distribution, as opposed to setting up their own sales networks from the ground up.
“The asset management ecosystem needs new firms to come to market to evolve,” he added. “I launched Boutique Capital Partners to support this and facilitate new boutiques coming to market or existing investment strategies who do not wish or need to have an internal sales team, to grow and thrive in a competitive and evolving investment marketplace.”
Kennedy is joined by Prior on the company’s investment advisory board, who left Columbia Threadneedle in April following 14 years on its multi-manager team.
She said: “Having researched and invested in boutique funds for many decades I look forward to helping them find the very best that is out there and bring them to the attention of the investing community.”
Kenny will also be joining Kennedy in his new venture as a distribution consultant. He was Square Mile’s commercial director for four until March last year – having been director of European wholesale at Kames Capital for almost 17 years prior – and set up his own firm, QD Consultancy, in January.
