SWIP's Wood and Harries set to take over Russell Investments funds

Scottish Widows Investment Partnership (Swip) multi-managers Simon Wood and Mark Harries could take over a number of the manager of managers funds that Russell Investments manages on behalf of the group.

The move comes as Swip looks to extend Citywire A-rated Wood and Harries' remit to cover manager selection as well as fund selection. The group is currently reviewing the manager of manager funds which Russell Investments manages for wealth management clients within the Lloyds group and plans to move the funds in-house where Harries and Woods' team has the expertise and resources. The decision is arguably logical as the SWIP team is responsible for fund selection for the Lloyds Private Banking’s Investment Portfolio Service.

The manager of manager funds include the Swip Multi Manager UK Equity, UK Equity Income, UK Equity Growth, UK Equity Focus and European Equity funds. Russell Investments currently has £4.5 billion in assets.

Commenting on the decision to move some of the funds in-house, Henshall said: 'Our multi-managers are looking at the portfolios and may or may not re-align the products.'

He said the mandates and objectives for the raft of funds run by Russell Investments were unlikely to change, potentially just the management.

He added: 'We need to make decisions about whether there is a different way to manage the funds. The logic is we have now got in-house resources from a well-respected management team, which we can put to good use. But we are only going to take responsibility for funds where we have got the resources.'

Harries and Wood manage a raft of funds at the group, including the Swip Multi Manager Diversity fund, which has posted a 1.1% return over since the fund was launched at the end of 2007, while the LCI FTSE AS/WexUK/Govt/ML Non-Gilt (55:20:15:10) index was down 9% over the same period, according to Lipper.