Veteran fund manager Alan Custis left Lazard Asset Management at the end of September, the firm has confirmed today. His departure came as a result of Lazard’s decision to merge its UK equities and Euro equities teams. This newly merged team will be headed by Aaron Barnfather, who has been working at Lazard as a senior portfolio manager since 2008.
Custis’ career at Lazard spans almost 20 years, having joined from JP Morgan Asset Management in 2004 where he worked as a UK equity fund manager.
At Lazard, he was involved in the management of two UK strategies: Lazard Multicap UK Income and Lazard UK Omega as well as Lazard Managed Balance, a multi-asset fund.
Performance of fund under Custis’s tenure vs sector and benchmark
Source: FE Analytics
The two UK strategies were co-managed with Alan Clifford, who will now report to Barnfather. Lazard Multicap UK Income is the only strategy that failed to beat both its benchmark and sector under Custis’ tenure. It sits in the third quartile of the IA UK Equity Income sector in terms of performance over that period.
As for the Lazard UK Omega and Lazard Managed Balance funds, they both made second quartile returns in the IA UK All Companies and IA Mixed Investments 40-85% Shares sectors respectively under Custis’ management.
Performance of fund under Custis’s tenure vs sector and benchmark
Source: FE Analytics
Custis has also been involved in the management of Lazard Managed Equity between March 2009 and June 2010 as well as Lazard UK Smaller Companies, which was closed last year.
Earlier this year, Ashish Bhutani, Lazard’s former chief executive also left the company after 20 years. Evan Russo took up the role in June, having formerly worked as the division’s chief financial officer.