Henderson Group, the parent company of Henderson Global Investors, has secured the services of key fund managers from Gartmore as part of its agreement to buy the troubled asset manager.
Henderson announced an offer this morning to buy Gartmore in a deal worth £335 mn ($523 mn). Gartmore’s board had unanimously recommended the offer.
Fund managers who have agreed to join Henderson include John Bennett, Gartmore’s European equities manager, who was poached from GAM in 2009, and Chris Burvill, manager of the Gartmore Cautious Managed Fund.
Others staying on include Charlie Awdry, Tony Lanning, Adam McConkey, Luke Newman, Chris Palmer, Simon Peters, Neil Rogan, John Stewart and Ben Wallace. Overall, Henderson has so far secured the services of Gartmore fund managers representing 84 percent of the investment firm’s assets under management.
The news that Henderson has retained key Gartmore staff should mitigate disruption to IR professionals who have investors based at the acquired company.
Analyst comment in the run-up to today’s agreement predicted there would be significant fund consolidation and many managers would leave as a result of a deal between the two companies.
Gartmore has been under extreme pressure following the departure of a number of staff including star managers Roger Guy and Guillaume Rambourg, leading to a stock market slump and £2 bn in net outflows for 2010.
The combined group will have assets under management of £78 bn, with around £17 bn being supplied by Gartmore.
