Pictet’s small caps chief leaves fund industry

Aylin Suntay, Pictet Asset Management’s head of small cap equities, has left the firm after a career spanning over ten years.

The Geneva-based firm confirmed to Citywire Global she decided to quit the fund industry to focus on her family life. Her former colleague Bill Barker has taken over her role.

She was previously one of the co-managers on the Pictet Small Cap Europe fund and was also responsible for the firm’s investments in southern Europe.

She has been replaced by colleague Alain Caffort who recently joined the Swiss group from Groupama Asset Management.

He now runs the fund alongside Oliver Knobloch and Bill Barker.

Suntay took up her post at Pictet Asset Management in 2001, prior to joining she worked for Colonial First State in London as head of European equities and Nicholas Applegate Capital Management as a manager in its emerging markets team in the US and London.

Over the past five years the Pictet Small Cap Europe has lost 17.9%, narrowly beating its benchmark the MSCI Europe Small Cap TR which lost 18.2%.