Bloomberg – Paul Myners, chairman of U.K. retailer Marks & Spencer Group Plc and former head of Gartmore Investment Management, is joining Liberty Ermitage Jersey Ltd. and buying a stake in the hedge fund company.<\/p>\n
Myners, who’ll become chairman of the Jersey Island-based business, is buying a 40 percent share in the group together with the company’s managers, including Ian Cadby, Liberty Ermitage said in an e-mailed statement today. South African insurer Liberty Group is selling the rest of the money manager and its $4 billion of assets to U.K. closed-end fund Caledonia Investments Plc.<\/p>\n
The move marks a return to fund management for Myners, who ran London-based Gartmore and later completed a government sponsored review of the U.K.’s pension business. He recommended that pension funds should diversify into more alternative investments and away from depending on stock and bond holdings.<\/p>\n
The fund manager is in “a very strong position in the sweet spot of the market at a time when there is great further potential,” Myners, 57, said in the statement.<\/p>\n