Macquarie’s Deverall takes over at Perpetual

Perpetual Trustees Australiatoday announced the appointment ofMacquarie Funds Managementhead David Deverall as its replacement for outgoing managing director and chief executive officer Graham Bradley.

The appointment of Deverall, who commences in the role in mid-September after a short break from the industry, ends months of market speculation over who would fill the role after Bradley, who has been at the helm of Perpetual for eight years, indicated back in May that he would leave the group once a suitable replacement was found.

Meanwhile Ben Bruck, who is head of Macquarie Funds Management’s international division will step into Deverall’s shoes as head of the funds management group.

Speculation had linked a number of well known industry figureheads with Bradley’s role, including former Westpac Investment Management head David Fite, Westpac/BT's David Clarke and Rob Coombe, Sealcorp's Ian Knox, and Perpetual executives Michael Stefanovski and Gerard Doherty.

Perpetual chairman Charles Curran says, “David’s combination of strategic ability and commercial drive are ideal for leading Perpetual through its next growth phase. His specific skills in product innovation and experience in management across a broad range of products and services made him the outstanding candidate for the role.”

Deverall had been at Macquarie for over seven years after joining as its head of strategy, analysis and planning. He went on to preside over an increase in the group’s total funds under management from $24.1 billion in June 2001 to $33.5 billion in July 2003.

Bruck, Deverall’s replacement at Macquarie, joined the group back in 1989 and since 1996 has grown the group’s funds under management in Asia from scratch to over $6.6 billion in 2003.

Recently, Bruck led the formation of joint ventures with the main banks of Korea, Taiwan and South Africa.

Last week Perpetual reported a 16.2 per cent increase in after-tax operating profit to $68.2 million for the 2002/03 financial year, up from $58.7 million on the previous year.

Bradley shocked the market back in May after announcing he would depart from the group in September - a year after the resignation of its head of equities Peter Morgan, whose departure led to outflows of over $1 billion and led to Perpetual opening its doors again to new institutional business.