Eppinger expects to be in charge of Cofunds for 12 months

Cofunds interim chief executive Charlie Eppinger expects to be in charge of the platform for up to a year as it searches for a replacement for Brett Williams.

Eppinger (pictured), who took up the role of interim chief executive last month after Williams' shock departure, said he would remain in the position for as long as it took to find the right replacement.

'I don't know how long I'm back for but my sense is it could be upwards to a year.  We don't see this as a two to three month appointment, and the way this market works, I think it could be six months to a year.'

Eppinger said Cofunds was poised to hire a recruitment firm to come up with a list of candidates.

He said: 'We need to pick a search firm and we are very close to selecting them. They will go through a long list of candidates before we boil that down to two or three, and we want to get the best person we can find. We will do a careful, considerate search and we've had a lot of interest already in the position.'

Eppinger said the board was 'not in a hurry' to get a replacement. 'We looked at the options and the board said they wanted me to run it. We can't afford to have a lame duck chief executive with the changing environment.'

Eppinger said Cofunds would consider recruiting from a rival in the wrap and platform market, but wanted to search more widely.

He said: 'Essentially, we need someone who is a great general manager, who knows the systems, and who knows IFAs. We are not in a big corporate entity, we are a standalone business, and you need to be able to run many disciplines.'

Cofunds, which has around £25 billion in assets on the platform, has already said it will not be promoting someone internally to the position of chief executive. Eppinger said in the interim he would be driving Cofunds' development program.