Richard Buxton, manager of Old Mutual UK Alpha fund, has been promoted to CEO at Old Mutual Global Investors (OMGI) with immediate effect. He will be supported by Warren Tonkinson, who has been appointed to the newly created position of Managing Director.

Mr Buxton joined Old Mutual as head of UK equities in June 2013. He was previously head of UK equities at Schroders, where he managed the Schroder UK Alpha Plus fund for more than ten years.

Whilst this promotion will undoubtedly mean an increased workload for Mr Buxton and more time away from his fund management responsibilities, ultimately his long-term and low turnover approach to investing should help make this more manageable. Additionally, it will help that he is already able to rely upon a fairly extensive UK equity investment team, covering large, medium and smaller companies. It also appears that he will have more of a focus on the investment side of the business, such as the portfolio managers/teams, product ranges and performance etc., whilst Mr Tonkinson will assist on the non-investment side.

For OMGI as a firm this may well be a good decision, Mr Buxton is clearly not new to leadership roles and from our conversations with other members of the UK equity team, his has been very much a positive influence since arriving in 2013.

We will, of course, be exploring the full implications of this appointment in time, though it may be prudent to point out that right now even Mr Buxton may not know how much time this new role will take up. It is worth reiterating that Mr Buxton has a very low turnover approach and as such this allows us some time to explore the full impact of this change. At present we are therefore happy to maintain our AA rating on the Old Mutual UK Alpha fund.