Home / Hildyard to go as PIMCO re-houses NZ distribution

Tony Hildyard
PIMCO’s man in New Zealand, Tony Hildyard, will leave the business by year’s end as the global fixed income firm ditches third-party distribution in Australasia.
Adrian Stewart, head of PIMCO Australia and New Zealand, said Sydney-based Matthew McLenaghan would assume Hildyard’s NZ client responsibilities over the coming months.
“Over the past year PIMCO Australia and New Zealand has undergone a review process of our client engagement models across the institutional and wealth management segments,” Stewart said in a statement supplied to Investment News NZ. “This resulted in the decision to internalise all third party distribution representation to ensure we were able to have a closer and direct relationship with our clients.”
In March PIMCO severed a long-standing arrangement with Equity Trustees, which was the manager’s retail distribution partner in Australasia, while hiring more staff for both its retail and institutional units.
After 20 years serving in various investment roles with Tower (including CEO investments), Hildyard was hired as a PIMCO “consultant” in 2008 “responsible for developing new business opportunities and servicing existing clients in New Zealand”.
Tower was PIMCO’s main distribution partner in New Zealand, a relationship that was continued following Fisher Funds purchase of the Tower Investments in 2013. Fisher uses both PIMCO and Wellington as underlying global bond managers as well as a growing in-house international fixed income capacity.
Hildyard would continue working with PIMCO until the end of 2015 as McLenaghan, senior vice president, takes over his NZ client relationships, Stewart said.
“Eric Frerer (head of PIMCO’s Australian and New Zealand Institutional Business) will provide account management back up for [McLenaghan],” he said.
Meanwhile, last week AMP Capital hired Nick Cobham as head of its NZ property portfolio. Cobham was previously joint general manager of NZX-listed Property for Industry (PFI). AMP Capital sold the management rights for PFI to Auckland firm DPF Management in 2012.
“Mr Cobham will be responsible for delivering the strategy, growth and investment performance of the portfolio, which includes a diversified portfolio of office, industrial, retail and development properties with a value in excess of NZ$1 billion,” AMP Capital said in a statement last week.
AMP Capital sold down its direct NZ property interests last year to Canada’s Public Sector Pension fund in 2014, however, the group continues to manage the portfolio on behalf of the new owner.
Following the direct property sell-down, the AMP Capital NZ Property Fund now invests solely in a passive portfolio of listed real estate trusts that tracks a combined NZX/ASX benchmark.
“Cobham joins another recent senior hire with Jonathan Armstrong appointed as divisional asset manager – retail in the expanding NZ property team,” AMP Capital said in the statement.
In other appointment news last week, John Berry, director of Pathfinder Asset Management, joined the board of tech start-up investor Punakaiki Fund.
Berry, who along with Mike Bennetts and Bryan Hutchins was named as Punakaiki independent director, said he hoped to “build awareness in the adviser and broking communities” of the fund’s potential.
“At $12 million [Punakaiki] is not yet at critical mass – it needs to grow,” he said. “The long-term goal is to list the fund.”
Punakaiki was launched by influential technology specialist, Lance Wiggs, in 2014, initially raising over $9 million from wholesale investors and via crowdfunding platform Snowball Effect.
“Punakaiki Fund invests in exciting, often early stage, companies. We look forward to giving more NZ investors the opportunity to take part in its growth,” Berry said in a statement.
– David Chaplin, Investment News NZ