QMA, the multiasset and quantitative equity specialist of PGIM, announced on Monday it has appointed a new chief investment office as part of its restructuring plan.
George Patterson, currently the firm’s co-head of quantitative equities, will take over the role and be tasked with overseeing quantitative equity and multiasset platforms. He is taking over the role from Roy Henriksson, who is leaving the firm in October. Patterson joined QMA from Axiom in October 2019. previously, he was the CIO for quantitative investments at Bank of Montreal Global Asset Management, spent time at Barclays Global Investors and co-founded Menta Capital LLC. He began his career at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
“George shares our firm’s commitment to continuous improvement,” QMA CEO Andrew Dyson said. “He has the right combination of investment discipline and passion for innovation that is so critical to our investment process.”
The restructuring will focus on the firm’s equity business and will expand on areas including ESG (environmental, social and governance) and customized solutions.
Here are the other promotions:
- Stacie Mintz, head of equity portfolio management, has been promoted to co-head of the quantitative equities team;
- Gavin Smith, a senior portfolio manager, will take the role of head of equity research.
“Our clients always come first and we do not shy away from difficult short-term decisions that will improve our long-term standing,” Dyson said. “We have been concerned that QMA’s equity portfolio performance in the last two-and-a-half years has been an outlier versus our 25-year history of delivering alpha for clients. Though we maintain strong long-term conviction in our models, after carefully scrutinizing all aspects of our investment process we found it necessary to restructure our portfolio management team.”
