Firmino Morgado and Filipe Bergaña are to join Man GLG as portfolio managers, based in Man GLG’s London office.
They will join from W4i Investment Advisory, a European equity focused investment manager.
Morgado (pictured) and Filipe co-managed three investment strategies focused on European assets: W4i European Dividend which outperformed the benchmark MSCI Europe TR by 7.7 per cent, beating 96 per cent of the funds in Morningstar’s Europe Equity Income peer group; W4i European Opportunities which outperformed the benchmark MSCI Europe TR by 7.3 per cent; and W4i Iberian Opportunities which outperformed the benchmark IBEX35 TR by 15.0 per cent.
Subject to regulatory approval, these investment strategies will form part of Man GLG's long-only offering, and will benefit from the firm’s institutional infrastructure and global distribution capabilities. The strategies will follow the portfolio managers’ investment philosophy of seeking to invest in a high conviction, concentrated portfolio of attractively valued companies that have the potential to deliver sustainable growth over the business cycle.
Morgado’s career in fund management spans 25 years. Before founding W4i in 2015, Morgado spent 12 years with Fidelity International where he focused on European and Iberian equity strategies. During his tenure at the firm, he ranked in the top quartile among the Morningstar peer group for the European equity strategies he managed and beat 98 per cent of the Morningstar peer group on the Iberian strategy he managed. Before Fidelity, Morgado spent time at Capital Group in Los Angeles and Geneva, and prior to that held roles at Goldman Sachs’ Whitewall Fund and F-Turismo Venture Capital.
Bergaña joined W4i in April 2015 from Och-Ziff. Prior to this, he spent four years with Fidelity International. Before joining Fidelity, Bergaña held roles within BlackRock’s European equity team in London and at Merrill Lynch Investment Managers in Madrid.
Teun Johnston, CEO of Man GLG, says: “We have a clear and successful strategy of hiring and integrating exceptional senior-level talent into Man GLG, offering our clients truly active strategies which aim to deliver differentiated returns. Firmino and Filipe’s European equity expertise will be highly complementary to Man GLG’s existing European team and will benefit from our global infrastructure and resources. We are delighted to be welcoming them to the firm and are excited about the proposition they will offer to our investors.”
Morgado says: “Joining Man GLG provides a compelling opportunity for us to combine our fundamental approach to investing with the firm’s infrastructure and global resources. In a low return environment, where investors are increasingly focused on the value added of active investment strategies, we believe that our truly active investment philosophy of concentrating on a limited number of attractively valued, high conviction investments can deliver outperformance over mainstream low tracking error strategies. We look forward to continuing to focus on our European strategies, supported by Man GLG’s institutional framework, and to working alongside Teun and his team.”
