Nineteen of the 22 hires were from ING’s Investment Management team, where they managed over US$16 billion in emerging market debts.
Instrumental in forming this specialist platform seems to have been Gorky Urquieta and Rob Drijkoningen, both former heads of emerging markets debt at ING.
“In this asset class there is probably only a handful of individuals that have that very knowledgeable experience and we were lucky to attract the interest of Rob and Gorky,” Paul O’Halloran, managing director of Neuberger Berman in Australia, told InvestorDaily.
Although Neuberger hired the team over a few months, it had been a longer term strategic aim of the firm to build a first rate emerging market debt platform.
“We had been looking for quite some time to try and expand our fixed income interest to include emerging market debt capability that was certainly a missing piece from what is a fairly comprehensive fixed income platform,” Mr O’Halloran said.
Among the other new hires from ING Investment Management are five portfolio managers, including Raoul Luttik and Bart van der Made.
Mr Luttik will be in charge of local currency, while Mr van der Made will focus on hard currency in the emerging markets.
“We are delighted these well regarded professionals have chosen Neuberger Berman and I am confident that they will enhance our culture of fundamental investing and partnering with clients,” said Joseph Amato, president of Neuberger Berman.
The team, which has recently become operational, will launch other vehicles for clients in the coming months.
“They are going to be focusing on our distinct flagship capabilities, which are hard currency bonds, corporate bonds, and local currency bonds, in the emerging market ... it’s only the first ones [hard currency bonds], where the vehicle has been established,” Mr O’Halloran said.
