Pie loses compliance head, gains counsel, director; Milford hires bond man; Frontier reforms | Investment News NZ

Pie Funds has reshuffled its legal and risk teams following the departure of head of compliance, Stephanie Cross, with another independent board appointment also looming for the dual-city boutique.

Cross, who doubled as associate general counsel, joined Pie in July 2021 from Covenant Trustee where she served in various senior roles for more than eight years.

Prior to Covenant, Cross worked for nine years in compliance positions for Macquarie Securities NZ (which later evolved into Hobson Wealth).

She headed a compliance team of three within the broader Pie operations division run by COO, Anna O’Sullivan.

Rhys van Stipriaan steps up from his risk and compliance senior manager role to replace Cross while Kirsty Gardyne joined Pie mid-May as senior counsel – a new legal position for the firm.

Gardyne was previously senior counsel for the ANZ wealth business: a couple of other former ANZ investment and wealth staff have landed at the manager including Grant Hodder, who joined Pie this February as head of product and operation, and Ana-Marie Lockyer, who took over as chief executive in December 2022.

Lockyer moved into the top job after a stint as Pie chair, triggering a board change as long-time director, Roger Kerr, replaced her in an acting capacity.

However, as of July 1 professional independent director, Matt Blackwell, will join the board, taking on the chair job in September.

Lockyer remains on the board along with founder, Mike Taylor, and independent directors, Cecilia Robinson, Brenden Hall and Kerr.

Blackwell was most recently CEO of derivatives trading business, OM Financial, until the completion of its sale to Jarden last year. He formerly held several senior corporate treasury, trading and risk management roles in banks both in NZ (including ANZ) and offshore.

“He is excited to be part of such a talented team and having been a client of Pie Funds for a number of years, admits he is looking forward to working with the team in the next stage of Pie’s evolution,” the company says in a release.

With offices in Auckland and Havelock North, Pie manages about $2.1 billion including $535 million or so in its Juno KiwiSaver scheme.

Elsewhere last week, the $16 billion plus Milford Asset Management named former Citigroup Australia head of credit trading, Anthony Ip, as a fixed income portfolio manager to run the group’s Trans-Tasman and Global Corporate bond funds.

Ip will also have wider credit analyst duties across the Milford business.

He spent almost nine years at Citigroup following a two-year stretch at Deutsche Bank in Sydney in credit research. Before Deutsche, Ip worked as a credit analyst for the Hong Kong branch of Goldman Sachs for close to eight years.

In a release, the Sydney-based Milford chief investment officer, Wayne Gentle, said: “Anthony brings a depth of experience across Asia and Australia, which will be leveraged to continue upholding our excellence in fund performance as Milford continues to grow.”

Meanwhile, Australian investment consulting firm, Frontier Advisors, has reorganised its research teams to bolster coverage of private and alternative assets.

In a release last week, Frontier says it had “reconfigured” the debt and currency team as ‘defensive assets and private markets’ to be headed by Andrew Kemp.

Iain McMahon assumes the new role of head of bonds, currency and derivatives, reporting to Kemp.

“We have also created a new Private Markets Team, that Andrew will directly manage, to consider both private debt and private equity under one single construct,” the release says.

Michiel Swaak has moved to the new head of alternatives position while Manish Rastogi and Jennifer Johnstone-Kaiser remain as head of real assets and property, respectively.

“To respond to recent resignations, and to bolster and shape our research team more broadly, we are currently recruiting for five roles within research – two in the Real Assets Team, two in the Defensive Assets and Private Markets Team and one in our Alternatives Team,” the Frontier statement says.

Frontier has been pursuing growth in the NZ market after winning the prize $1 billion consulting gig with Taranaki energy-based charitable fund, TECT, late in 2021.