Alphinity makes key hire

Boutique fund manager Alphinity Investment Management has a new portfolio manager, Chris Willcocks joins from Citi.

Willcocks worked at the US banking giant for 15 years in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Sydney.

For the past six years, he has been Citi's director and head of international equity sales, APAC, based in Sydney.

In his new role, he will be responsible for industrials sector investments in the $7 billion Alphinity Global Equity Fund which has returned 14.7 percent after fees since inception in December 2015. This return is up on the MSCI World Net Total Return Index return of 13.1 percent.

Alphinity global portfolio manager Jonas Palmqvist said the appointment rounds out the global portfolio managers to five after Mary Manning and

Trent Masters joined the business last year. Jeff Thomson has been with the firm for six years.

"Chris brings a wide-ranging knowledge and experience of global equities to our growing team, and he has been a key, collaborative partner to us at Alphinity Global since we launched our funds over six years ago," Palmqvist said.

"We are looking forward to him making a major contribution to our co-portfolio manager model."

According to Willcox, he had a great career at Citi, living and working across three countries with fantastic and bright colleagues.

But the opportunity to realise a long-held desire to join funds management was too strong.

"The team at Alphinity has built a phenomenal business and I am relishing the chance to contribute to it going forward," he said.

"The attraction of Alphinity, to myself, was the opportunity to join a small team of very experienced individuals, in a boutique funds model, with an investment process that resonated strongly with me."

Alphinity aims to build portfolios of high-quality, reasonably priced businesses, that are in an earnings upgrade cycle which is being under-appreciated by other investors.

"If they can do that consistently, they can hopefully deliver good outcomes for our investors. This disciplined approach combined with the flexibility to buy companies across the globe strongly aligns with my personal views on investing," he added.

"I have known the team for over six years now and am very excited to help them grow the business in the future."

The fund is supported by Challenger Limited subsidiary Fidante Partners, which forms long-term alliances with talented investment teams to support and grow specialist investment management businesses.