Neptune Investment Management’s ‘tainted’ name has been dropped as Liontrust completes its acquisition of the firm.
In July, Liontrust confirmed it was buying Neptune for up to £40m, which would see its assets under management increase to £17bn.
In a regulatory filing today, the asset manager confirmed the Neptune investment team, headed by Robin Geffen (pictured), would be renamed the Liontrust Global Equity team. Neptune’s investment team brings with it 19 Global, Income, Regional and Emerging Markets funds.
All the funds have all been rebranded. For example, the Neptune Global Income Fund is now called the Liontrust Global Dividend Fund.
A spokesperson for Liontrust confirmed Neptune employees are still based in Hammersmith but will be moving over to Liontrust offices based in Strand in due course.
He declined to comment on individual roles that have been removed as part of the acquisition. Geffen has stepped down as chief executive to focus on fund management.
Neptune a strong brand or a liability?
Shore Financial director Ben Yearsley was not surprised the Neptune brand had been dropped. “It has become tainted in the last few years as a result of poor performance and general instability there over the last four or five years.”
AJ Bell head of active protfolios Ryan Hughes said: “Before the financial crisis, Neptune had real strength and a raft of high performing funds that would generally be found in many advisers portfolios but a decade on it shows that without strong and consistent performance, fashions change and investors move on to other areas.”
Chelsea Financial Services managing director Darius McDermott said Neptune had a very strong brand particularly in the IFA market. “They were well regarded in UK, global, Europe and US equities but unfortunately suffered a number of managers leaving and performance dipped.
A spokesperson said that it dissolved the Neptune name as the firm has always kept the Liontrust brand with any acquisitions.
Funds will be dropped and merged
Liontrust said there will be no change to the managers running the funds or the investment process.
Yearsley said that he currently doesn’t own any Neptune funds but UK mid cap and Russia would be among its standout strategies. “They do have a distinct house process though which means they often out or underperform together.
“It’s clear they will have to merge some funds – Neptune always had far too many in my view.”
AJ Bell has not been users of any of the Neptune funds for a considerable period of time because many of them are focused on niche areas, said Hughes. “The merger with Liontrust doesn’t really change that position at the present but we will look again once the corporate situation has settled and any fund range alterations have taken place,” he said.
“This was actually a relatively complementary merger and therefore there are not that many obvious merger candidates. Looking at the fund range, there could potentially be mergers over time in the UK equity income sector where there are two funds as well as the global equity income sector where there are also two funds. Finally, there is some overlap in the UK growth space with the sub-scale UK Opportunities fund a potential candidate to merge into Liontrust UK Growth.”
Neptune synonymous with Geffen
Willis Owen head of personal investing Adrian Lowcock said Robin Geffen’s “character and personality” are going to be the main things Neptune will be remembered for. “He built a business which encouraged development of new fund managers and has a unique way of looking at things that others may have missed. The business was a great supporter of charities and the arts and had the ambition to give back to society.”
Geffen said in a press release: “The move to Liontrust allows me to devote all my time to managing the Global Equity investment team and the funds I run. The fact that I can focus all my energy on my real passion of managing funds is really exciting for me. I am also thrilled that I can continue to manage the funds exactly how I want to run them.”
