There is further change at Henderson European (HET ) after the unexpected resignation of the £582m investment trust’s two managers from Janus Henderson. 

Co-managers Tom O’Hara and Jamie Ross are leaving to join Swiss asset manager GAM Investments, it was announced this morning. 

That has seen Robert Schramm-Fuchs and Nick Sheridan, both experienced European investors at Janus Henderson, piloted in to take ‘interim’ responsibility for the portfolio with immediate effect. 

Schramm-Fuchs focuses on large European companies, as well as working on some absolute return strategies. Sheridan is also a European equity specialist, though also runs the Janus Henderson Horizon Global Smaller Companies fund. Both are Citywire-rated for the strong record of their open-ended funds over three years. 

Henderson European Trust was formed by the merger of Henderson European Focus and EuroTrust just last July. After long-time European Focus manager John Bennett retired, his co-manager O’Hara and EuroTrust manager Ross teamed up on the enlarged and renamed vehicle. 

According to today’s announcement, HET is planning to maintain the same broad investment approach, which is focused on ‘global champions’ in Europe, with a leaning towards quality growth stocks. However, even more changes may be afoot. 

The board said it would now solicit shareholder views on the direction of the trust and review its position in light of the feedback. 

In addition to other discount control measures, the directors said they would now use buybacks to target a ‘single-digit discount’, with the shares trading no wider than 10% below the net asset (NAV) of the underlying portfolio. 

Stifel analyst Will Crighton said this was ‘definitely an unexpected announcement’ and that the current 9% discount could widen in spite of the new buyback policy. Despite the ‘good experience’ of the interim managers, the broker downgraded its recommendation from ‘positive’ to ‘neutral’ given the uncertainty. 

‘Despite John Bennet’s retirement, we were confident the trust remained in good hands,’ said Crighton. ‘However, there is now considerable uncertainty around who will be managing the portfolio going forward.’

The board had already promised a performance-conditional 25% tender offer if the portfolio underperforms its benchmark in the five years to September 2029.

Since the commencement of the monitoring period, HET has delivered NAV total returns of 3.6%, compared to a 4.3% total return from the FTSE World Europe (ex UK) index, according to the trust’s own corporate broker, Deutsche Numis. 

HET shares fell 2.4% to 182.5p. However, that comes in the context of a 1.3% fall for the Stoxx Europe 600 index as Donald Trump’s tariffs against US trading partners have knocked global markets. 

Wider context

In total, GAM has hired three European equity portfolio managers from Janus Henderson Investors, with a knock-on effect on multiple open-ended funds too. 

The new GAM team will be led by O’Hara and includes Ross and David Barker, who previously managed €6.5bn in European equity funds on behalf of institutional and retail clients globally.

They are set to join GAM in the coming months. GAM had a blow to its European equity offering last November when Niall Gallagher and his team moved to Jupiter Asset Management. 

The loss of the trio to GAM also represents further disruption for Janus Henderson, whose European equity team saw stalwart Bennett announce plans to retire at the end of 2024, which led to a restructuring of core competencies for the Anglo-US group over the past year.

Commenting on his new position in a separate announcement, O’Hara said: ‘Over the decades GAM has nurtured some of the finest investment talent for the benefit of clients.

‘Its strong heritage in European equities has directly shaped my approach to investment. It is a privilege to accept this responsibility, and I look forward to contributing to the renaissance of GAM under new, long-term focused majority ownership.’

While GAM has experienced several departures over the past year – such as Mark Hawtin joining Liontrust, Adrian Owens moving to Investcorp-Tages and the exits of EM managers Tim Love and Joaquim Nogueira – it has also bought talent on board.

Hawtin’s role as head of global equities was taken on by Paul Markham, who joined from Newton Investment Management, while it also announced a deal with Arcus to expand the distribution of top-performing fund manager Mark Pearson’s alternative strategies.

Additional reporting by Chris Sloley.