Pendal heavyweight arrives at QIC

Former Pendal heavyweight Ronnie Thomas has joined QIC as a strategist just as the state investments team reviews its asset allocation process.

Reporting to portfolio strategy lead Andrew Whittaker, Thomas will work on moving QIC State Investments towards a total portfolio approach which focuses on the fund's investment goal.

Incidentally, with this investment style, funds do not operate with a fixed strategic asset allocation, and they avoid silos across asset classes.

AustralianSuper, Future Fund and TCorp are convinced that TPA is the model of optimality and alignment.

These funds argue that strategic asset allocation has major structural problems.

Whittaker said QIC is leaning towards TPA as it looks for more flexibility given the target-rich market outlook.

"The forward-looking environment is going to be a target-rich one, and if you're a liquidity provider, you want to be able to take advantage of that prevailing opportunity set as it arises," he said.

According to Whittaker, Thomas brings a strong skillset in fixed income and multi asset investing from his tenure at Pendal.

"He will will form part of the QIC State Investments top down team. The top down team is responsible for portfolio construction, asset allocation, tilting, tail hedging and implementation for State Government related portfolios.

"Ronnie will play an integral role in the building out of the strategic tilting, tail hedging and implementation processes."

The top down team is code for a "joined up" TPA investment approach which brings together top-down macro views and bottom-up sector opportunities to construct the overall portfolio.

Thomas arrived from Pendal where he spent five years as a portfolio analyst with the income and fixed interest multi-asset team after being hired by fixed-income guru Vimal Gor.

"The five years at Pendal was an accelerated learning experience for me. Special thanks to Vimal Gor for allowing me to join his team at Pendal back in 2019, and Michael Blayney for their guidance and support in the last couple of years," he wrote on LinkedIn.

Before that, he was a senior valuation analyst at Refinitiv and held a similar role at Thomson Reuters.