Wells Fargo Asset Management (WFAM) announced today that Peter Weidner will join the firm as head of Factor Solutions within the Multi-Asset Solutions team and Mark Brandreth will join as a senior portfolio manager within the Multi-Asset Solutions team. Both will be based in London, and both join the firm from the Schroders multi-asset team.

In their new roles, Weidner and Brandreth will focus on designing solutions with a specific emphasis on portfolio construction and the use of risk and alternative risk premia for clients who seek retirement income strategies, wealth preservation, and downside risk protection. Weidner and Brandreth will report to Dan Morris, global head of Portfolio Solutions.

“The addition of Peter and Mark to our team further enhances our ability to provide thought leadership and deliver high-quality solutions to our clients, with the goal of establishing the team as an innovator in the industry,” said Nico Marais, president of Wells Fargo Asset Management and head of Multi-Asset Solutions.

At Schroders, Weidner was head of the advanced beta group and managed a range of systematic investment strategies across asset classes. These factor-based strategies included both long and long/short and were designed to deliver a range of client outcomes. Before joining Schroders, he was a partner and portfolio manager responsible for managing systematic investment strategies at Auriel Capital. His experience in building and managing factor-based portfolios includes equities; fixed income; FX; and environmental, social, and governance (ESG). Weidner earned a master’s degree in finance from the University of Florida’s Warrington College of Business.

As head of portfolio construction and trading systems at Schroders, Brandreth developed a pan-asset-class portfolio management and trading system for the multi-asset team. Prior to joining Schroders, he was with BlackRock as a managing director in the scientific equities group, where—among other tasks—he led a search for new stock-picking data sources globally. Brandreth also was head of quantitative investment processes, head of the European active equity business, and, before that, head of active U.K. equities at Barclays Global Investors. He earned a master’s degree in business administration from Warwick Business School and a master’s degree in natural sciences from Cambridge University.

Source: Wells Fargo Asset Management