Perpetual confirms Collopy exit

Perpetual Limited has confirmed the exit of the company’s small caps and microcaps strategies leader, Jack Collopy.

In doing so, the company announced the promotion of Alex Pattern and James Rutledge as co-portfolio manages within the Australian asset management business.

Collopy is leaving at the end of June after 22 years with the business.

Perpetual Chief Executive, Australia, Amanda Gillespie said: “Jack has made an outstanding contribution to the business throughout his time at Perpetual. His investment performance has been strong and he leaves the team in a very good position to continue providing quality outcomes for our clients. We wish him all the best in the future.”

Alex and James will be supported by two dedicated small cap analysts who are already part of the Australian equities team, as well as research coverage from the wider analyst team.

“Perpetual has a long and proud history of succession planning and promoting from within. Both Alex and James had been promoted in recent years in anticipation of leadership roles within the business, and we are extremely confident that they will move seamlessly into their roles as Co-PMs,” Gillespie said.

She said Pattern has been Deputy Portfolio Manager of the Smaller Companies strategy for more than two years and has been a member of the investment team for eight years. He has covered the Telecommunications, Media and Retail sectors in that time and worked very closely with Jack in portfolio management.

Rutledge has more than 16 years’ industry experience and has spent time in various roles covering building materials, steel, paper and packaging sectors. He has been working on the Pure Value Share Fund in various portfolio management roles for almost four years. As at 31 March 2023, the Pure Value Share Fund has returned 24.96% p.a. over three years (net performance) compared to 16.59% for the ASX300 Accumulation Index1.