Two more Morningstar staff depart

Morningstar Investment Management has farewelled two longstanding investment professionals.

Brad Bugg, the head of multi-asset portfolio management, and Peter Bull head of equities, have left the firm.

"As our global investment teams and capabilities have continued to evolve, we have re-assessed the alignment of our Australian investment personnel with our global investment and research teams and our future client needs," said Asia Pacific investment chief Matt Wacher.

"To bring clearer accountability and address some overlap in responsibilities, we determined that two of our Australian-based roles were no longer required.

"As a result, we agreed with Brad Bugg and Peter Bull that they will leave Morningstar. We wish them all the best for the next step in their careers.

Wacher has taken over Bugg's multi-asset role, and Vito Gala, Morningstar's global head of systematic strategies, will take over those strategies previously managed by Bull.

The investment chief was keen to point out that these changes occurred before the subsequent integration of Morningstar's manager selection capabilities into the investment team announced last week.

Moreover, he stressed they were completely unrelated.

One week ago, the financial services firm said its manager selection sector would move into its investment team.
As a result, Morningstar's director of manager research for Asia Pacific,Tim Murphy will leave the firm.

Incidentally, Bugg joined Morningstar Australia 13 years ago from Austock Asset Management, where he was an investment analyst.

Before that, he was a director at Dresdner Kleinwort.

For his part, Bull joined Morningstar nearly nine years ago from Colonial First State, where he was a portfolio manager. 
Previously he worked as a quantitative analyst at BNY Mellon.