(pictured: Brett Baker)

Evergreen Consultants, the boutique asset consultant for financial planners and family offices launched early this year by Angela Ashton and Brett Baker, has finalised its asset allocation committee.

The members are: Angela Ashton, Tom Cottam, Stephen Duchesne, Kingsley Jones and Daniel Liptak.

Baker said last week: “We’ve spent a few months talking and consulting with people who we believe can offer truly independent, differentiated and informed opinions on markets and economies.

“In thinking about who we wanted in our Committee, we wanted to ensure that not only did our members have deep and relevant experience, that real, intelligent debate would occur. Hence, each of members can speak with authority on issues related to asset allocation and portfolio construction, while being open to new thoughts and opinions.

“Further, each of our committee members has a unique and different experience within the industry. Thus, we believe we will avoid ‘group think’ and will be able to offer opinions and insight that will be differentiated, by both its quality and content, from our peers.”

Ashton is a former head of ratings at van Eyk Research and Lonsec as well as having had senior investment roles at other organisations including QIC.

Cottam has had senior investment roles at AMP, the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and was CIO of the Fiji Provident Fund. He is best known to financial advisers as the author of van Eyk Research’s ‘Investment Outlook Report’.

Duchesne was formerly managing director and head of Australasian debt markets with Merrill Lynch and has held senior roles at Credit Suisse and Midland Bank PLC.

Jones was a portfolio manager for the Macquarie Global Thematic Fund, and global head of quant trading research at Alliance Bernstein.

Liptak, a director of alternatives consultant ZG Advisers, has worked in prime broking at both UBS and Goldman Sachs and in advice at Zenith.

Baker is a former head of institutional business at UBS and before that head of advisor services at Citi. He said Evergreen had four key pillars:

• Being independent makes the firm nimble and strong
• “We work with a small number of clients to achieve their desired investment outcomes”
• The firm builds “unique solutions in a cluttered market”, and
• “We collaborate with very experienced individuals who share our vision.”