Alan Brown on mission to boost non-UK business at Schroders

Alan Brown, who recently vacated one of the highest jobs at the world’s largest institutional asset manager, State Street Global Advisers (SSgA), has resurfaced at Schroders, where he will replace Richard Horlick as head of investment. Mr Horlick, formerly with Fidelity, is associated with traditional UK institutional management.

Mr Brown will work alongside Massimo Tosato, Schroders’s head of global distribution. Both report to Michael Dobson, group chief executive.

Mr Tosato now claims to be a big believer in the institutional approach. He told PWM: “We were born as an asset manager and our aim is to be the leading asset manager in the world. We are about managing money, not distributing funds to the man in the street. In order to sell to the retail market we would need a sales-force of thousands, different brand positioning and a whole new culture.”

However, within Schroders, the enigmatic Mr Tosato has accepted the loss of balanced mandates from UK pension funds with equanimity, preferring to concentrate on garnering more profitable assets from European distributors, selling funds to retail investors as well as private clients.

London-based Mr Brown quit SSgA two months ago after missing out on the chief executive job to Boston-based William Hunt. The development suggests SSgA is centralising in the US. Under Mr Brown, there was originally a push to boost assets sourced from third-party distributors to private clients. While this was eventually ditched, the group is now concentrating increasing efforts into winning sub-advisory mandates from retail financial services providers such as life insurance companies.

Schroders said Mr Brown has been chosen based on his international – and particularly US – experience, which will support the firm’s mission to boost US business.

Schroders reported assets rose 3.1 per cent in Q1 to £108.9bn.