In a move to cut costs, BlackRock Investment Management (BlackRock) in Australia has made 10 staff redundant.
BlackRock, currently with 226 staff in Australia, has pared down its property team with the position of acquisitions manager made redundant resulting in the departure of Charles Bryant.
Paul Healy continues to lead the organisation’s property team.
In early 2009, portfolio manager Danielle Carter will be returning from maternity leave to become BlackRock Australia’s senior A-REIT (Australian real estate investment trust) portfolio manager and Nadeem Hussain is transitioning into the role of analyst, covering A-REIT’s.
As a result, Richard Fakhry has left BlackRock and Paul Juniper will depart in March 2009.
Head of marketing Jean-Luc Ambrosi was also part of the job cuts. He was the only person to be retrenched within BlackRock Australia’s marketing team of five people.
BlackRock head of distribution Damien Frawley confirmed the redundancies with InvestorDaily.
“BlackRock looked at expenditure globally across the business and marketing and advertising were reviewed as part of that process,” Frawley said.
There would be no change to how clients deal with BlackRock in Australia, Frawley said.
“I want clients to understand that every person who they’ve had dealings with is still here. And there is no intention for that to change,” he said.
BlackRock in Australia’s managing director Maurice O’Shannassy said: “We are in a strong position as we consider how to respond to the market-driven contraction in our business without compromising our ability to deliver exceptional product and services to our clients.”
New York-based BlackRock, the world’s largest publicly traded funds management firm, is BlackRock Australia’s parent.
BlackRock in the US this week made redundancies for the first time in its 20 year history, retrenching four investment managers, six analysts and researchers.
