Earlier this year, it was announced that the former head of equities at UK-based Royal London Asset Management (RLAM), Peter Rutter, would be leaving with his team to set up his own boutique global equity fund manager.

It will be an affiliate of Australia-based Pinnacle Investment Management, called Lifecycle Investment Partners, which will invest in style-neutral, long-only global equities.

Australian firm Ironbark has had a mandate with RLAM for many years for its global equity funds: Ironbark Royal London Concentrated Global Share Fund, Concentrated Global Share Fund – Class H (Hedged), Core Global Share fund – Class A and Core Global Share Fund – Class H.

According to Morningstar, its Ironbark Royal London Concentrated Global Share Fund, launched in 1996, is $2.1 billion; Core Global Share Fund - Class A is $779 million; its Core Global Equity Fund - Class H is $131 million and its Concentrated Global Equity Fund - Class H is $86 million, for a total of $2.96 billion.

At the time of Rutter's departure, Ironbark initially supported him and said it intended to transfer the assets to his new firm when it officially launched. But the delays mean the firm is now being forced to look elsewhere, it said.

"We expected Peter and his investment team to be able to manage the assets under their new structure by August 2024." While working closely with Pinnacle, we realized that Peter and his investment team would not be in a position to manage the funds within a time frame that Ironbark believed was in the best interest of investors."

In Pinnacle's results for the 2023-2024 financial year. earlier this month, Pinnacle founder and managing director Ian Macoun noted that the team had employment restrictions from RLAM that limited the work they could do.

“It is early; these employees have work restrictions to adhere to, so we won't see much activity this calendar year. Building a new boutique takes time, and we build carefully and deliberately,” McCone said.

"It should be a very large, successful boutique over time, and we're going to do it at the pace that makes sense to build a quality affiliate." We'll update in due course, but we tend to go slow and careful at first."

As a result, Ironbark appointed US investment manager Brown Advisory and international asset manager Robeco to the funds instead.

“Ironbark maintains a shortlist of alternative 'best-in-class' investment managers and, following an extensive due diligence process, we have selected Robeco and Brown Advisory to be the appointed investment managers of the core and concentrated funds, respectively. Both managers have extensive experience in managing fund assets and can do so within a time frame that is in the best interest of investors.

“Ironbark intends to appoint a transition manager in the coming weeks to facilitate the orderly transfer of the fund's assets to the appointed investment managers. Ironbark expects the transition to be finalized in late September 2024.”