Fund manager Nicola Horlick has appointed a Prudential director to run the specialist property arm of her new institutional multi-manager and consultancy business.
Tariq Rahman, whose role at Prudential included heading investment in the City and in Scotland, will become chief executive of the property arm of Bramdean Asset Management.
The business was officially launched last month with corporate governance expert Sir Derek Higgs – a former chairman of Prudential’s fund management business – as its chairman. However, it is still awaiting approval from Irish regulators for six funds to be domiciled in Dublin.
Rahman, 32, will join Bramdean Property Investment at the beginning of April, where he will put together and run a small team. He has been at Prudential for eight years.
Horlick said: “In other areas, such as global equities, we’re going out and finding people to manage the money for us. But we’re going to invest in property directly because we believe the product out there is not exciting enough, so we had to find someone who is really good.
“Tariq is the right sort of person for a business like ours — he’s very talented and has a very entrepreneurial approach.”
Horlick hit the headlines in the late 1990s during a dispute with her then employer Morgan Grenfell, when she was dubbed “superwoman” for juggling a City career and family.
The property arm of her new business will launch a UK-based, aggressively geared opportunity fund with a gross value of around £250m in the first year, and a Dublin-based core fund of around £100m. Both will be open ended and will be launched in April.
They will focus initially on UK property of all types and are aimed at private and institutional investors. The minimum investment will be £125,000 in order to tap into “mass affluence”, Horlick said. She predicts a minimum return for investors of 10%.
Horlick said the fund would be more entrepreneurial and aggressive than its competitors.
Bramdean will also manage some segregated portfolios for institutional clients.
