Smaller firms fund manager Williams leaves Gartmore role
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Ex-Axa Framlington boss Robert Kyprianou has joined Gartmore as a non-executive director while head of UK smaller companies Gervais Williams has left the firm.
Williams will be replaced by Adam McConkey who has 11 years’ investment experience and has worked at Gartmore since 2000.
Williams ran the fledgling, growth opportunities and Irish growth investment trusts, as well as the UK & Irish smaller companies Oeic. According to Trustnet, he has underperformed the peer group on a composite basis over one, three, five and 10 years.
Hargreaves Lansdown recently recommended investors to sell out of the UK & Irish smaller companies fund due to a deterioration in its ret-urns, partly because it has tended to sell shares in smaller businesses when they reach medium size.
Kyprianou was chief executive officer of Axa Framlington until his retirement in September last year.
He says: “I am looking forward to joining the board of Gartmore, one of the pre-eminent asset managers in the London market.
The company has a broad range of excellent products and managers and is well-positioned to benefit from the demand for retail and absolute return products.
Commenting on Williams’ departure Chelsea Financial Services managing director Darius McDermott adds: “While Gartmore has had a particularly unfortunate run of news lately, on this occasion, I do not think this was a big disappointment as the smaller companies fund has been a consistent underperformer over one, three and five years.”
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