Global asset manager Columbia Threadneedle has overhauled its multi-manager team following the exit of long-term funds manager Rob Burdett.
Paul Green will replace Burdett as head of the multi-manager team which manages the Navigator and Lifestyle funds.
Burdett, who has been with Columbia Threadneedle since 2007, will leave the investment firm in April for pastures new.
Green, a long-standing member of the portfolio management team, will continue to work alongside Adam Norris and Anthony Willis to manage both ranges.
Columbia Threadneedle said it has had a strategic focus on integrating its various asset allocation capabilities over the past two years. The change will bring together specialist solutions, portfolio construction and multi asset expertise into a single EMEA Asset Allocation team.
It has consolidated several local multi-manager teams into a single, globally connected multi-manager solutions team with manager selection research analysts based in the UK, Netherlands and the US.
From 1 April, Paul Green, Anthony Willis and Adam Norris will transition to Columbia Threadneedle’s EMEA Asset Allocation team led by Paul Niven.
The portfolios will continue to be managed with the same investment objectives and policies, but with the ability to draw on the wider portfolio construction and asset allocation expertise of the more than 25 investment professionals in the team.
Catherine Sathi, another long-standing member of the team, will become part of the Columbia Threadneedle Multi-Manager Solutions team under David Weiss.
The specialist team has an average of 19 years’ experience and is responsible for managing over $79bn of invested assets. Sathi will continue to contribute to manager research for the Navigator and Lifestyle funds as well as global manager selection.
The firm also announced the departure of multi-manager portfolio managers Kelly Prior and Scott Spencer.
Richard Watts, CIO, EMEA at Columbia Threadneedle Investments, said: “Columbia Threadneedle has extensive multi-asset, asset allocation and manager selection experience and expertise for a broad range of clients, which we have been consolidating over the past two years. Transitioning the Navigator and Lifestyle funds to these teams will provide additional resources for the benefit of our clients invested in them.
“Rob, Kelly and Scott have been important members of our investment team for many years and leave a strong legacy of an established and successful multi-manager range of funds in the UK retail market, and we thank them for their many contributions to our business and our clients.”