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Jupiter has poached Royal London Asset Management’s chief investment officer to replace two executives who were doing the same job, as it seeks to simplify the business and improve performance.
Piers Hillier’s arrival at the FTSE 250 fund group will lead to the departure of Kiran Nandra, head of equities, and Matthew Morgan, who leads the fixed income team. The two executives also hold the title of joint chief investment officer. Hillier is due to start in February.
Under Hillier, the chief investment officer role will focus on developing new products and broadening Jupiter’s clients beyond its traditional focus on retail investor base, as part of a broader plan by chief executive Matthew Beesley to simplify the business.
Beesley has been cutting jobs and merging — or closing — sub-scale funds to reshape the company after a difficult period that led to a net £10bn of outflows last year. Customer withdrawals shrank to £200mn in the first half of 2025.
Beesley told the Financial Times that he had decided to removed the co-CIO structure to give the role a “sharper” focus, adding that Hillier will help to attract “new talent” and expand the group’s investment offering.
Beesley has made acquisitions to diversify the business and hired new investment managers since he took the top job in October 2022. He said he was open to the further buying of smaller fund managers or investment teams after acquiring CCLA.
Jupiter earlier this year agreed a £100mn deal to buy CCLA, one of the biggest managers of money for UK charities, in a transaction that will boost its assets under management by £15bn to almost £60bn.
“In the very short term we’re clearly focused on the integration of CCLA,” Beesley said. “But we are open for business, we are available and keen to attract talent into Jupiter. There are plenty of gaps on our product shelf.”
Jupiter came under pressure when one of its top UK stockpickers, Ben Whitmore, left to set up his own boutique, Brickwood Asset Management. He has since been replaced by Alex Savvides, who joined from JO Hambro Capital Management last year.
Jupiter has also been cutting costs, saying in May that it would reduce spending by £15mn, to bring down its cost-income ratio to 70 per cent from 78 per cent.
Beesley has made other moves to try to bolster the business, such as acquiring Origin Asset Management’s emerging markets-focused investment team, which started at Jupiter earlier this year.
“I continue to meet with lots of investment managers who want to work at Jupiter and I get approached by lots of boutiques who think they might be better off as part of Jupiter,” Beesley said.
Jupiter’s shares have risen 44 per cent this year.