Van Eyk moves to reassure market
Van Eyk has moved to deflect attention from a spate of recent departures to competing research group, Mercer Investment Consulting, by announcing a new head of distribution today and the replacement of its latest departure, Sidney Chong.
The group has signed-up ABN Amro Absolute Capital head of distribution Brian Long to work in a similar capacity and named ex-ING performance analyst John Wong as the replacement for Chong, who was head of quantitative research and resigned last week to join Mercer.
At Mercer, Chong also joins former van Eyk associate directors Dragana Timitojevic and Rashmi Mehrotra.
Meanwhile, van Eyk managing director Stephen van Eyk said the appointment of Long as head of distribution ends a long and extensive national search.
The role was formerly occupied by Coin Software director Darren Pettiona.
“We've been on the look-out for a new head of distribution for a while,” van Eyk said.
Long will also become a member of van Eyk's executive team and brings more than 20 years experience in the financial services industry to the role.
Long will take responsibility for managing van Eyk's distribution team and the external distribution relationships for all of van Eyk's research and product solutions.
“We are confident of a smooth transition for all of our new staff appointments, to ensure clients are not adversely affected,” van Eyk said.
Concurrently, van Eyk has also injected fresh blood into its fund manager research and ratings team.
Joining Wong is former LQuay Futures Brokers analyst Alexius Chan, who has been appointed to van Eyk's fund manager research and ratings team.
Wong will focus on van Eyk's ongoing monitoring of the integrity of fund managers' investment style, quantitative research and other consulting-related quantitative analysis.
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