Two partners at Artemis, who managed more than £1bn of fixed income assets between them, are leaving the firm and will be replaced by former Abrdn fund manager Liam O’Donnell.
FTAdviser can reveal that Juan Valenzuela and Rebecca Young, who ran the £1bn Artemis Strategic Bond fund and the £275mn Artemis Target Return Bond fund, are leaving the company.
Valenzuela joined Artemis in 2019, alongside several colleagues who had previously worked at Kames Capital, including Stephen Snowden who is currently Artemis head of fixed income.
Valenzuela has decided to leave Artemis to work for a hedge fund.
Young joined Artemis from Janus Henderson in 2021.
Their replacement, Liam O’Donnell, worked as manager of the Abrdn Strategic Bond fund and the Abrdn Income fund.
The Irishman’s role at Artemis will include specific responsibility for Rates and Macro research.
He will manage the Artemis Strategic Bond fund alongside a pair of established Artemis managers, David Ennett and Grace Le, while he will join Snowden and Jack Holmes on the management of the Targeted Return fund.
The company has also hired additional fixed income analysts and expects to hire further in this area.
Paras Anand, Artemis’ CIO, said: “We believe Liam O’Donnell’s appointment, along with the extra analyst hires, helps broaden and deepen the investment expertise we can deploy to manage fixed income assets.
"Many of our clients share Artemis’ long-term commitment to fixed income as a core, long-term element in portfolios. Liam’s appointment further strengthens our capabilities and over time will help enable us to enhance our offering in this space.’
Darius McDermott, managing director at Fund Calibre, a rates company, has long rated the Targeted Return fund and several other Artemis fixed income products. He noted that the bond team at the firm is well established and experienced.
Ben Yearsley, director at Fairview, said that while he isn’t particularly familiar with O’Donnell, he said: “The team is very good, probably one of the premier bond teams out there.
"But I think the Strategic Bond fund hasn’t grown much in the past three years since the last manager changes, so a reset my be good for that product.”
david.thorpe@ft.com
