The firm said in a note to clients invested in its various Thames River credit funds and F&C high yield funds that it planned to reposition its fixed income business across a number of key areas: global government bonds, investment grade credit, global credit opportunities, emerging market debt and convertible bonds.
Keith Patton, head of global credit opportunities, who joined F&C in May this year from UBS, will oversee the merging of the two teams, which F&C said is designed to make sure it is offering clients what they are asking for.
A spokesperson for the firm said: “We would always look to all of our investment propositions to see if there is a better way of doing it.”
Earlier in the year the firm announced a plan to bring all of the Thames River Funds under the F&C “stable” in a move to “hibernate” the Thames River brand.
This has coincided with some high level departures from Thames River, including CEO Charlie Porter who is supposed to take up a role as non-executive director on the F&C board in Q1 next year, and investment director Michael Warren.
Portfolio Adviser has written before about the prospect Thames River’s days could be numbered, as F&C CEO Edward Bramson has made no secret of the fact he feels the acquisition of the former by the latter was not beneficial to the business or shareholders.
The departures from Thames River have since continued, with the firm’s head of credit Steve Drew and his colleague Brett Golledge resigning. While this announcement coincides with the restructure, F&C insists the duo had handed in their notices prior to the repositioning, along with F&C’s head of credit research Peter Sage.
“The intention is for the Thames River Funds to be renamed in due course, but there is no intention to lose the Thames River personnel or to lose the managers of those funds. There is nothing more sinister about this,” F&C’s spokesperson continued.
Drew’s portfolios, including the Thames River Global High Yield Fund, will now be run by Simon Holmes.
