Henderson has advised the receivers on several SIV restructurings, including that of the Sigma SIV, a natural fit given the past experience of Jim Irvine, Henderson’s head of structured products, in managing the White Pine SIV while at JPMorgan (the vehicle was subsequently sold to Standard Chartered). But Irvine is keen to emphasize that Henderson’s advisory experience stretches well beyond this sector, with a series of mandates including both assuming the management of existing transactions and taking over entire portfolios. "Advisory and asset management are joined at the hip – advisory is asset management," he says. "Our ultimate goal for the advisory business is to increase our assets under management. We are bringing someone of Ganesh’s calibre on board in order to drive this process forward."
The advisory business will extend into credit and structured credit, CLOs, leveraged loans and commercial real estate. "The opportunities in this area are almost boundless," says Irvine.
Henderson has £49.5 billion of total assets under management but Irvine is confident that the advisory business will not conflict with existing investments. "Henderson has a robust conflict of interest policy and if we are conflicted we will walk away.
