Richard Jones, managing director of real estate at Aviva Investors, is to leave the UK company after 27 years amid a strategic review of the business.
Richard Jones, managing director of real estate at Aviva Investors, is to leave the UK company after 27 years amid a strategic review of the business.
Jones said in an email to contacts that he was 'taking the opportunity of a restructure to leave Aviva'. He will be with the company, which forms part of insurance group Aviva, until Christmas.
An Aviva Investors spokesperson said: 'We have been reviewing our strategy so that we build a more vibrant business and lay the ground work from which Euan Munro, who joins us as CEO in January 2014, can grow the business.
'At the heart of this will be a focus on offering investment propositions which deliver income with low volatility. Our key objective is to significantly improve profitability by focusing on capabilities and propositions that build on our heritage in managing long-term savings. To achieve this, there are certain changes we need to make to our products and structure. In light of this, we have had to give the difficult message to some of our colleagues that they will be leaving the business and we have spoken to those affected.'
Aviva announced in July that Munro would assume the role of CEO of Aviva's fund management business (Aviva Investors) in January 2014, reporting to group CEO Mark Wilson.
According to PropertyEU's latest Top 100 Investors ranking, Aviva takes seventh place with real estate assets under management in Europe of €23.5 bn at end-2012.
