Martin Currie expands local investment team

Martin Currie, the active equity specialist investment manager of Franklin Templeton, is growing its local investment team by adding three new hires.

James Douglas was appointed as an investment client portfolio manager, working on the firm's Australian and global capabilities in the institutional space while Julia Wang was appointed as a research analyst for large-cap stocks. Both joined from Franklin Templeton's balanced equity management team.

There, Douglas was responsible for trading and portfolio management. He has also worked at JANA Investment Advisers. Before working at Franklin Templeton, Wang was at KPMG.

Finally, Bowei (Sam) Li had been appointed as a quantitative analyst, joining from Frontier Advisors. Li had worked at Martin Currie since January 2021 but this was a newly-created permanent role to boost the team's quantitative capabilities.

Kimon Kouryialas, co-head of global distribution at Martin Currie, said: "We have an enormous opportunity to build our business in Australia and across Asia and to establish ourselves as a leading active equity specialist.

"Today we are very pleased to have a strong team of 20 professionals in Australia. Equity assets under management have grown from $3 to $10 billion in just over a decade."

Reece Birtles, chief investment officer for Martin Currie Australia added: "The addition of these experienced professionals demonstrates Martin Currie's focus on continuing to provide market-leading performance and client solutions that deliver benefits such as active ownership and active after-tax management".