Queensland based financial group Suncorp's entire equities team has defected to form a boutique.
The nine strong team led by managing director Denis Donohue will form a boutique called Solaris, which will be distributed by Wilson HTM owned fund incubator Pinnacle Investment Management (Pinnacle).
Joining Donohue on the new venture will be Sean Martin, William Earnshaw, Andrew Gatenby, Bernard Machen, Michael Bell, John Hodder, Damien Keune and Robert Pownell.
Solaris will be 60 per cent owned by staff and 40 per cent owned by Pinnacle.
A seed investment of $20 million has been provided by Pinnacle, which will also provide all the administration, compliance and distribution for the fund.
Pinnacle chief executive Ian Macoun said the trend was for big institutions to get out of investment management and for boutiques to take over.
"It's not necessarily a bad thing for institutions, their strength lies in distribution," he said. "It's very hard to sustain good investment management teams in institutions. They don't create the right environment and staff can be frustrated by distractions."
Macoun added that the nine Suncorp emigrants would do nothing but investing from the day they started.
"Managers blossom at boutiques, provided they have good support," he said.
This is Pinnacle's fifth boutique. It was founded in 2006 by Macoun and Wilson HTM.
