After seeing the departure of one of its senior figures a few days ago, Sanlam in the UK says it is moving to strengthen the shape of its business.

Sanlam, the South Africa-based wealth management firm which has now been operating in the UK, said it has “moved to consolidate and strengthen its fund research capability” after Paul Surguy, a senior figure in the investment team, had left the firm to join Kleinwort Benson.

As reported here on 10 October, Kleinwort Benson announced it had appointed the man as senior discretionary fund manager; he had, the firm said, previously been head of managed funds at Sanlam Private Investments.

In its statement yesterday, Sanlam Private Investments’ chief investment officer, Richard Champion, said: “Whilst it was sad to see our good friend Paul depart, after 15 years with us we understood he would be looking for different challenges and pastures new. What this event presented was an ideal opportunity for us to have closer dialogue with the other parts of Sanlam and to build one centre of excellence that services all Sanlam entities in the UK. There was to some extent of doubling up of coverage in some areas and perhaps not enough in others. Our new structure addresses this.”

London-based Sanlam International Investments advises on global mandates managed in the Sanlam group and has assets under advice of more than $7 billion. Its seven-strong team is headed up by Justin Greeley, who is supported by senior portfolio manager Barry Cowen, along with a team of five investment managers solely focused in the funds arena.

To view an interview by this publication and the firm in January this year, see here.