HEAD-TO-HEAD: BNPP IP vs Schroders

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The named portfolio manager of the Parvest fund is Valérie Charrière-Pousse, but the named portfolio manager of each of BNP Paribas’ European strategies mainly relates to client-facing responsibilities, according to Brunt.

In practice, the fund is managed collegially by a team consisting of 11 people. Each member, split by sector, is responsible for researching stocks and bringing them into the portfolio.

Andrew King, who is the head of the team, is in theory the lead manager because he has veto rights, Brunt said. King first took charge of the fund in March 2008.

“If he strongly disagrees with what’s being decided among the team, then he has the right to override them,” Brunt said.

However, Brunt believes that King hasn’t used that veto right for a long time.

Martin Skanberg has managed the Schroder fund for six years. He is supported by a core European team comprised of nine Pan-European research analysts, some of whom have portfolio management responsibilities, and two global analysts covering healthcare and energy.

Brunt is concerned about Parvest team turnover. It has seen a number of changes since 2015. According to Brunt, two of the 11-member team, Dan Hobster and Pierre Pincemaille, left the firm in 2015 and 2016, and another, Daniel Hemmant, left in an internal move to the firm’s global equities team last year.

Two new members, Daan Douglas and Steve Sherman, joined the team from other internal teams in mid-2015 and early 2016, respectively, while Nicola Quek joined in May 2016. Giovanni Cherubini, who had left the group in December 2015, returned the team in early 2016.

“We want to see stability among teams because different people have different dynamics,” Brunt said.

“It takes time for people to learn the ropes and understand how to do things,” he added.

For the Schroder fund, the team saw some turnover in 2016, with Henrik Nyblom leaving and Nathalie Casalie joining. “But it is otherwise stable,” Brunt said.

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