Pendal's Vimal Gor heads up new boutique

After running Pendal's bonds and fixed interest team for 11 years, Vimal Gor has moved to head up a newly formed boutique within the group focused on alternative duration strategies.

Gor is joined in the new venture by four colleagues. His new team consists of machine learning quantitative analyst Itay Feldman, quantitative analyst Philip Treharne, volatility analyst Thomas Ciszewski and assistant portfolio manager Robin Lu.

At the head of Pendal's bonds, income, and defensive strategies, Gor oversaw $22 billion invested across income, composite, pure alpha, global, and Australian government strategies.

Before joining Pendal, the $139.2 billion fund manager, Gor was the lead fund manager for Aviva's Global Aggregate Bond Funds.

He has also previously worked with Scottish Mutual and Murray Johnstone.

Gor said alternative duration is an answer to the problem of the declining efficacy of using global government bonds within multi-asset portfolios.

"As global government bond yields fall ever lower and volatility reduces, their defensive attitudes are much reduced."

Gor's move has triggered some other staff changes.

Amy Xie Patrick is now head of income strategies, George Bishay is head of credit and sustainable strategies, Tim Hext heads government bond strategies and Steve Campbell is head of cash strategies.

News of Gor's role change first appeared in the Financial Standard on 6 October.