Trillium nabs Janus Henderson veterans as it makes UK debut

US impact investment house Trillium Asset Management has poached two Janus Henderson veterans to head up a new UK division.

Ian Warmerdam, who spent 18 years at London-based Janus Henderson, has left his role as Director of Global Equities to join Trillium as a Lead Portfolio Manager, and will oversee the launch of a suite of global ESG equities strategies for the $5.1bn firm. 

Graham Kitchen, who also spent more than a decade at Janus Henderson – most recently as Global Head of Equities and an Executive Committee Member – has joined as the Chairman of Trillium’s UK Board. 

The pair will be joined by Jamie Mariani, former Head of Research at Martin Currie, who has been appointed as Portfolio Manager. 

All three will be based in Edinburgh. 

Trillium is a long-established name in the responsible investment world, having been launched by the late Joan Bavaria in 1982. Bavaria also founded the US sustainable finance organisation Ceres. 

Previously, the Boston-based B-Corp partnered with European entities in order to distribute its funds in the region. However last year Trillium was bought by Australian financial group Perpetual, which has now acquired a UK entity to manage and distribute products in the country, “with plans to further build a presence in Europe this year and in Asia in the near future”. 

According to Perpetual’s latest financial results, the Trillium ESG Global Equity Fund and the Trillium Global Sustainable Opportunities Fund – both launched in Australia after the acquisition – outperformed their benchmarks by 3.8% by 8.4%, respectively.