Lazard Asset Management (LAM) has announced the appointment of Ben Price as an investment specialist.
Price joins LAM with two decades of experience in the asset management industry, including more than 16 years at Macquarie, where he was head of wholesale for its asset management arm.
Most recently, he was head of Australia wealth at PGIM.
According to the firm, Price’s new role will see him act as a channel between its investment team for the Global Listed Infrastructure and Global Equity Franchise strategies, and the distribution team to service LAM’s institutional, adviser and direct investor clients.
“Ben’s background and experience will enable us to strengthen our connectivity with clients and potential new investors in these strategies,” said Paul Cuddy, chief executive and head of LAM Pacific.
“We continue to invest in our outstanding Global Listed Infrastructure and Global Equity Franchise capabilities and are delighted to add someone to the team with such a track record of success.”
LAM clarified that its Global Listed Infrastructure strategy has returned 10 per cent per annum since its inception in 2005, outperforming listed infrastructure indices and the MSCI World Index.
The Lazard Global Equity Franchise strategy, it added, represents a “different” way of approaching global value investing, by only investing in listed companies which LAM considers as having an “economic franchise”, meaning companies which possess a combination of predictable earnings and large competitive advantages.
The strategy was launched in 2013 and has returned 13.7 per cent per annum, ahead of the MSCI World Value Index and in line with the MSCI World Index.
Price will be based in Sydney, alongside portfolio managers and analysts Warryn Robertson and John Mulquiney.
In June, LAM launched its first exchange-traded fund (ETF) in Australia, providing investors and advisers access to an actively managed portfolio of listed infrastructure companies.
Namely, the Lazard Global Listed Infrastructure Active ETF (GIFL) – a unit class of its infrastructure fund – is now listed on Cboe Global Markets.
“By investing in the equities of listed infrastructure operators, such as electricity networks, toll roads, and other essential assets and related services, investors can gain exposure to predictable long-term earnings streams,” Robertson said at the time.
“In our view, not all infrastructure is created equal. Our unique approach focuses on a ‘preferred’ subset providing an asset class that can deliver clear benefits: diversification, lower volatility, and inflation protection.”
