Senior Henderson staff leave company ahead of Janus merger

Several senior investment staff have left Henderson Global Investors ahead of the UK fund company’s long and protracted merger with US rival Janus Capital.

The departures, which include Henderson’s head of global equities, have been blamed on staff concerns about cultural differences between the UK fund house and Denver-based Janus Capital, as well as overlap between the two companies’ investment teams.

Henderson chief executive Andrew Formica told the FT last October that the “vast majority” of staff would be unaffected by the Janus deal, which is expected to result in $110m of annual cost savings for the combined group.

In a presentation for investors, Janus Henderson said it would reduce costs by consolidating “overlapping functions”, but Mr Formica declined to comment on which staff would be affected.

Analysts expected the job cuts would primarily affect middle and back office roles such as compliance, IT and marketing, leaving investment staff unscathed.

However a number of leading fund managers have already left the company ahead of the merger completing.

Chris Paine, former head of multi-asset research at Henderson, has quit the company he joined 17 years ago to join Schroders, the UK’s largest listed fund house.

Matthew Beesley, who has been head of global equities at Henderson since 2012, has also left the FTSE 250 asset manager to join Swiss rival GAM.

T Rowe Price, the US asset manager, this week announced it had acquired Henderson’s high yield opportunities fund, which oversees $50m of assets. The acquisition will see six Henderson staff, including Kevin Loome, who joined the company in 2013 as head of US credit, move to T Rowe Price.

A spokesperson for Henderson said: “As a result of the planned merger, it was decided that the US high yield team based in Philadelphia would not remain once the businesses combined.”

The spokesperson added that there “was no role in the new organisation” for Mr Beesley following the merger, and that the multi-asset team was in the process of hiring to replace Mr Paine.