His appointment comes just over two months after Buxton’s shock departure to Old Mutual Global Investors (OMGI) was announced, with Buxton set to start at OMGI in June.
In the interim period Peter Harrison, Schroders’ global head of equities, has been caretaker of Buxton’s team, while the UK Alpha Plus manager has continued to run his Oeic and investment trust until his departure and the start of Schroders’ new recruits.
Jupiter’s Philip Matthews will take the helm of the UK Alpha Plus Fund when he starts at Schroders in October, until then it will be looked after by Sue Nofkke and then Alex Breese, who joins the UK equity team from Neptune in July.
Meanwhile, Cazenove’s Julie Dean is to run the closed-ended version of the strategy, as approved by the investment trust’s board recently.
Man for the job
Bateman joined Schroders in April 2008 having spent 12 years at Goldman Sachs Asset Management where he was the portfolio manager for continental European equities for eight years.
He also spent 12 years as an analyst covering numerous sectors across the European market.
In his new job Bateman’s fund management responsibilities remain the same, he currently runs the Schroder ISF European Large Cap and Schroder ISF European Equity Focus funds.
According to FE Trustnet, Bateman has an annualised total return of 10.5% over the past ten years and has outperformed his peer group composite over three, five and seven years.
Division of labour
Under his stewardship Schroders will merge the value investing activities in both the UK and Europe, which means Kevin Murphy, Nicolas Kirrage, Andrew Lyddon, Ian Kelly and Jamie Lowry in the UK value team will report to Bateman.
Previously they reported to Buxton, while the European value team have reported to Bateman since he became head of European equities.
The manager joining to run the UK alpha strategy will report to Harrison, as will the UK equity fund managers joining from Cazenove Capital over the summer months.
Read our analysis of Schroders’ acquisition of Cazenove and what it means for investors and the asset management industry…
