Francois de Bruin and Richard Saldanha have been appointed co-managers of Aviva Investors’ Global Equity Endurance Fund after the departure of Giles Parkinson.
Saldanha has been at the firm for 15 years and has been working as back-up manager on the fund since its inception.
De Bruin has been at the firm for seven years, and also manages the Sustainable Income & Growth Fund, and is head of listed real estate.
The firm said the pair were the “natural candidates” to take over from Parkinson and “fully understand the investment philosophy and process of the [fund’s] strategy”.
Parkison is leaving Aviva to become managing director of global funds at Close Brothers Asset Management.
He will be taking over all the funds currently managed by Riitta Hujanen, who is leaving Close Brothers after nearly 10 years.
A spokesperson for Aviva said: “We can confirm that Giles Parkinson has left the business with our best wishes to pursue an external opportunity.
"Francois de Bruin and Richard Saldanha have become co-managers of the Aviva Investors Global Equity Endurance Fund, drawing on the full support and resources of the global equities and ESG research teams.”
In June, Aviva Investors began a redundancy consultation process with members of its equity team, with the firm’s chief investment officer for equities, David Cumming, having already left the business.
The redundancies came as part of Aviva chief executive Amanda Blanc’s plans to shake up the business, including a desire to focus on a smaller number of asset classes where the company believes it has a competitive advantage.
Parkinson joined Aviva Investors in 2015 as a global equities funds manager.
He joined from Artemis where he was an analyst on the firm’s strategic assets fund, and prior to that had covered the oil and gas sector as a research analyst at Newton Investment Management.
sally.hickey@ft.com
