Funds management is a tough business.  Tribeca Investment Partners has decided to do away with a specialist sales and marketing position. Jim Savage, who joined the boutique equities firm in 2005 and was a shareholder, left last week.

David Aylward, the managing director, said that associate company Grant Samuel, which owns about 40 per cent of Tribeca, will continue to handle the retail sales and marketing while the portfolio managers and an additional client service person will handle institutional business.

American-born Savage arrived in Australia in 1990, originally managing analytics for State Street in Sydney, where he met his wife. He then spent seven years as a business development manager at MLC, followed by four years at Credit Suisse. At both firms he helped market Capital International strategies in Australia.

Savage is a CFA charter holder and helped the CFA Sydney Society organization to set up in Australia and was president from 1997-99.

Tribeca has three main strategies: a small-cap fund which is run by Aylward and is closed to new clients, a long-short fund (“alpha extension”) run by Sean Fenton and a global total return fund. Total assets under management are about $1.6 billion.

Savage said: “I’m looking forward to a new challenge in the Australian funds management industry. I enjoyed my time at Tribeca and wish the firm well. I think we had considerable success.”