Multi-Asset Team

Meet the team

The Liontrust Multi-Asset investment team is one of the most experienced and highly regarded in the UK market. The Multi-Asset team comprises John Husselbee (Head of the Multi-Asset Investment team), James Klempster (Deputy Head), Paul Kim, Mayank Markanday and Jen Causton, along with a four-strong Multi-Asset investment support team headed by Adrian Holmes. The team has more than 100 years of investment management experience between them. John was a co-founder and CIO of North Investment Partners before joining Liontrust in 2013 and was previously Director of Multi-Manager Investments at Henderson Global Investors. James joined in 2021 from Momentum Global Investment Management where he was Director of Investment Management. Before moving to Liontrust in 2013, Paul was Research Director at Investment Manager Selection (IMS Ltd). Mayank and Jen were previously at Architas and joined Liontrust as part of the acquisition of its UK Investment Business in 2020.

John Husselbee

John Husselbee has 35 years’ experience managing multi-asset, multi-manager funds and portfolios. Before joining Liontrust in 2013, John was co-founder and CIO of North Investment Partners and Director of Multi-Manager Investments at Henderson Global Investors. Read more

James Klempster

James Klempster has 17 years’ investment management experience. Before joining Liontrust in 2021, James was Director of Investment Management at Momentum Global Investment Management. He has also worked for Avebury Asset Management and NW Brown Investment Management. Read more

Jen Causton

Jen Causton has 15 years’ industry experience. Before joining Liontrust in 2020, Jen was an analyst and investment manager at Architas UK. Jen began her investment career in 2006 at Schroders where she worked as an investment writer. Read more

Mayank Markanday

Mayank Markanday has 15 years’ experience in managing multi-asset funds. Before joining Liontrust in 2020, Mayank was a Senior Investment Manager at Architas UK and a Portfolio Manager and Analyst at Russell Investments. Read more

Paul Kim

Paul Kim has nearly 40 years’ experience. Before joining Liontrust in 2013, Paul was Research Director at Investment Manager Selection (IMS) and previously worked at Alexander Stenhouse Fund Managers, Spencer Thornton, AXA Sun Life and Capel Cure Sharp. Read more

Our 5 step investment process

Strategic asset allocation

Among the factors they analyse, the fund managers collate and study historical returns and volatilities of a range of asset classes, as well as their correlations with each other, and the pathway of future interest rates to determine the SAA that should meet the volatility target of the fund or portfolio over the long-term. The SAA is essentially the default asset allocation should the fund managers have no views about the relative attractiveness of different asset classes.

Tactical asset allocation

The primary aim of the tactical asset allocation (TAA) is to increase exposure to an asset class when it looks cheap and reduce exposure when it appears expensive; the fund managers’ focus is on valuations rather than market timing. They believe it is important to supplement the long-term benefits of the SAA with the flexibility to take advantage of valuation opportunities in the shorter term.

Fund selection

We hold a range of funds and fund managers, including active, passive and alternative investment strategies. The fund managers believe the key elements that should underpin fund selection are: investment process, fund manager experience, fund manager knowledge and fund manager incentive (including remuneration).

Portfolio construction

The fund managers want to ensure the underlying funds are exposed to the segment of the market they feel has the most potential for outperformance while reducing unintended risk. Therefore, they consider how each holding interacts with each other in terms of correlation, risk and return to ensure the benefits identified at the holding and sector levels are not diversified away when grouped together at the fund level.

Monitoring, review and risk management

The Liontrust Multi-Asset team is given regular updates, including in-depth data, on the underlying funds to ensure they are being managed according to their stated objectives and investment processes. This includes attribution analysis to show the underlying funds do not experience style drift and remain within their stated risk parameters. We gain access to the underlying fund managers to probe their thinking and evaluate their continued commitment.

Our investment process

There are five key stages to the investment process for the target risk funds.

Strategic asset allocation
Among the factors they analyse, the fund managers collate and study historical returns and volatilities of a range of asset classes, as well as their correlations with each other, and the pathway of future interest rates to determine the SAA that should meet the volatility target of the fund or portfolio over the long-term. The SAA is essentially the default asset allocation should the fund managers have no views about the relative attractiveness of different asset classes.

Tactical asset allocation
The primary aim of the tactical asset allocation (TAA) is to increase exposure to an asset class when it looks cheap and reduce exposure when it appears expensive; the fund managers’ focus is on valuations rather than market timing. They believe it is important to supplement the long-term benefits of the SAA with the flexibility to take advantage of valuation opportunities in the shorter term.

Fund selection
We hold a range of funds and fund managers, including active, passive and alternative investment strategies. The fund managers believe the key elements that should underpin fund selection are: investment process, fund manager experience, fund manager knowledge and fund manager incentive (including remuneration).

Portfolio construction
The fund managers want to ensure the underlying funds are exposed to the segment of the market they feel has the most potential for outperformance while reducing unintended risk. Therefore, they consider how each holding interacts with each other in terms of correlation, risk and return to ensure the benefits identified at the holding and sector levels are not diversified away when grouped together at the fund level.

Monitoring, review and risk management
The Liontrust Multi-Asset team is given regular updates, including in-depth data, on the underlying funds to ensure they are being managed according to their stated objectives and investment processes. This includes attribution analysis to show the underlying funds do not experience style drift and remain within their stated risk parameters. We gain access to the underlying fund managers to probe their thinking and evaluate their continued commitment.

Funds managed by the team

Multi-Asset MA Active Fund Range

The Liontrust MA Active Funds are a range of six risk profiled funds of funds targeted at investors looking for an actively managed product that uses the skills and judgment of the underlying managers.

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Multi-Asset MA Blended Fund Range

The Liontrust MA Blended Funds are a range of five risk profiled funds of funds aimed at investors seeking an investment solution that offers a blend of active and passive management to provide the potential for outperformance at a reasonable cost.

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Multi-Asset MA Passive Fund Range

The Liontrust MA Passive Funds are a range of six fund of funds targeted at investors willing to accept that their investments will track the performance of the underlying funds’ benchmarks but will not outperform them. The MA Passive range is designed to harness the advantages of investing in tracker funds with the investment scope enjoyed by multi-asset managers.

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Multi-Asset MA Diversified Real Assets Fund

The Fund seeks income and capital growth by investing in funds managed by specialist real assets fund managers. Real assets are investments in physical assets, such as buildings or commodities (for example, energy, livestock and grains).

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Multi-Asset MA Monthly High Income Fund

The Fund is an actively managed fund of funds that seeks to generate a monthly income. The underlying funds will primarily (at least 70%) invest in bonds and debt instruments.

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Multi-Asset MA Passive Prudent Fund

The Fund seeks to achieve capital growth and income with a low level of volatility (risk), having a risk profile of 2 in a range from 1 to 7. The underlying funds will be passive where possible.

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Multi-Asset MA Strategic Bond Fund

The Fund is an actively managed fund of funds that seeks capital growth and income. The underlying funds will primarily (at least 70%) invest in bonds denominated in (or hedged back to) pounds sterling.

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Multi-Asset MA UK Equity Fund

The Fund is an actively managed fund of funds that seeks to achieve capital growth. The underlying funds will primarily (at least 70%) invest in shares listed on the UK stock market.

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MPS Portfolios managed by the team

Multi-Asset MPS Dynamic Beta Portfolios

The Liontrust MPS Dynamic Beta Portfolios are designed to deliver long-term capital growth at a competitive price, predominantly through the use of passive strategies.

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Multi-Asset MPS Growth Portfolios

The Liontrust MPS Growth Portfolios are designed to deliver long-term capital growth.

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Multi-Asset MPS Income Portfolios

The Liontrust MPS Income Portfolios are designed to deliver an attractive and rising level of income in addition to some long-term capital growth.

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WSS Portfolios managed by the team

Multi-Asset WSS Dynamic Beta Portfolios

The Liontrust WSS Dynamic Beta Portfolios are designed to deliver long-term capital growth at a competitive price, predominantly through the use of passive strategies.

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Multi-Asset WSS Growth Portfolios

The Liontrust WSS Growth Portfolios are designed to deliver long-term capital growth.

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Multi-Asset WSS Income Portfolios

The Liontrust WSS Income Portfolios are designed to deliver an attractive and rising level of income in addition to some long-term capital growth.

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