Throughout his investment career spanning 15 years, Mr Blanshard has specialised in the management of fixed income portfolios and this experience is the fundamental strength of Culross.
Culross is one of very few global bond specialists and is distinctive because of its depth of knowledge in a wide range of governement bond markets. Mr Blanshard's responsibility at Culross is for investment strategy and for all investment decisions and executions. He is the primary point of contact for clients.
His career began in 1980 when he joined CIGNA's international office in London as a portfolio manager and with them he specialised in the active management of European government bond portfolios. He became Senior Portfolio Manager-Fixed Income, in 1984. In 1986 CIGNA acquired AFIA Insurance and Crusader Insurance Company which increased fixed income assets under management from US$1bn to US$2.7bn. The fixed income manager group increased from three to six within which Mr Blanshard managed the principal CIGNA portfolios in Bermuda and Europe. From 1986 to 1989 he was appointed Director of Fixed Income and headed up all fixed income investment activity for CIGNA out of London.
In 1982, while with CIGNA, he jointly developed a portfolio management system, Biton PMS, with the software company Biton Limited, to cater to the needs of global fixed income and equity managers. This product has become an industry standard and is now used by major fund managers such as The Bank for International Settlements (BIS), Mercury Asset Management, Bankers Trust Asset Management, CSFB Investment Management and Prudential Investment Management, to name a few.
In 1989, with the benefit of ten years experience from this large corporate fund management background, Mr Blanshard's ambition was to set up and work in an independent investment management business and develop his investment skills further in that environment. Mr Blanshard left CIGNA to become a founding partner of Century Asset Management Limited, a global fixed income specialist where he was the company's Chief Investment Officer and joint Managing Director.
Century marked a significant departure from general insurance and life company investment objectives to investment objectives based on performance and absolute real returns. Mr Blanshard's own investment track record begins at Century in February 1990 and the systems and performance records from that time are his exclusive property. That investment process successfully resulted in impressive rates of return for each customer portfolio, none of which utilised any gearing, and this excellent track record compared in performance terms to the top 10% of Micropal listed US Dollar based international bond portfolios.
In 1990, he was guest speaker at the Canadian Treasury Managers Association annual conference and presented an
approach for the global diversification of fixed income pension portfolios. In 1992 he presented a guest paper to
the Chicago Board of Trade Annual Risk Management conference, about the use of derivatives in global fixed income
portfolio management.
Sarah E Bagley, born in 1964, is a British national. She was educated at Gateways School, Harewood and is fluent in French. She is also a shareholder in Culross.
Her responsibility at Culross is for all investment administration activities. These include confirming and processing all trades, managing daily client statements, cash management, monthly client reporting and performance analysis. She is also responsible for developing and publishing all marketing material and its distribution.
In addition to the above, Mrs Bagley supports the investment management and marketing activities. The investment support role includes managing time deposit and foreign exchange balances.
Mrs Bagley was previously at Century where she was responsible for administration, client reporting and the
production of all marketing material.
He is responsible for maintaining primary economic data and research which is of long term importance to Culross. He also undertakes specific economic analyses of countries as identified and directed by Nigel Blanshard.
His marketing responsibilities involve arranging and preparing material for presentations, identifying prospective clients and monitoring Culross's relative investment performance.
Tel: (44)-171 409 1352
Fax: (44)-171 409 2514
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