Head of Portfolio Management - Public Credit

Head of Portfolio Management - Public Credit

Location: London – hybrid 50%

Full time – 35 hours

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Who are Just?

We help people achieve a better later life. That’s our purpose and it’s the reason we exist. We are a fast-growing FTSE 250 company helping customers enjoy the retirement they deserve. We do this through a variety of market leading, award-winning products and services, delivered by a diverse team of over 1,400 purpose-led colleagues who genuinely put the customer at the heart of everything we do.

This is a brilliant time to join our business. We are on an exciting growth journey to become the UK’s most loved retirement expert.

Purpose

The Head of Public Credit [‘PC’] is a leadership role in the investment team, ensuring, in particular that Public Credit investments are evaluated carefully and our portfolio is optimally invested.

The purpose of the role is to support the investment activity of the business such that we can offer our policyholders the best possible security and pricing.

The Public Credit team is split into three vertical pillars [Trading, Portfolio Management, Public Credit Macro / Market Insight] and one horizontal pillar [Investment Projects].

The role will look to oversee activities within all 4 pillars while also ensuring they remain fit for purpose in terms of ensuring Public Credit function supports Just’s strategic objectives. It also has an additional leadership pillar within the PC function as well as interactions across the investment and wider business.

Examples of Key Activities

• Originate and review liquid and illiquid Public Credit assets in both primary and secondary markets to meet our investment goals.
• Actively manage Just Group’s Public Credit Portfolio, working closely with Credit Research’s credit views, to generate value through optimisation trading strategies.
• Collaborate with Capital Management to improve the efficiency of the wider balance sheet and generate additional value under either IFRS or Solvency II.
• Develop improved Portfolio MI, both for use by the Public Credit team BAU and to provide further insight to the wider team on our Public Credit portfolio.
• Manage Portfolio Attribution and Trading actions to achieve new business spreads and add further value through Optimisation trading.
• Lead Just Group’s Public Credit Trading process and development.
• Collaborate with Responsible Investment and manage the implementation of our transition plan for the Investment Team.
• Collaborate with the Strategy team, providing relevant colour and relative value thoughts that can we factored into the wider business and their managing of external manager relationships.
• Ensure Just Group become increasingly aligned with our key bank and broker counterparties to support our business growth ambitions.
• Work with the DB team to assess potential asset’s we could receive in specie and support new business.

Skills and Knowledge

Skills:

• Excellent analytical skills, including ability to make commercial judgements in light of uncertain circumstances. Able to support judgement calls with a clear justification.
• Excellent verbal, written communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to present investment matters in a clear and concise manner
• Understanding and experience in executing research, due diligence and investment evaluation
• Strong results focus, with ability to work efficiently and grasp concepts that are not straightforward, yet seek guidance where necessary
• Excellent team-working skills and ability to maintain relationships with internal stakeholders and develop relationships with external parties

Demonstrate strong aptitudes in:

• Risk awareness
• Investment matters and strategies, in particular credit, with the ability and interest to develop further
• Research and getting a thorough understanding of the issues being examined
• Approaches to understanding and evaluating risks
• Investing on behalf of liability driven investors

Knowledge of:

• Long only and fundamental investing, with the ability and interest to develop further
• The issues surrounding investing on behalf of a (life) assurer (desirable, but not essential)
• Financial markets in general
• Understanding of the products and services provided by Just Group

Experience

• Demonstrable track record of relevant experience in a bank, insurance company, asset manager or consultant
• Experience managing fixed income portfolios, asset allocation and portfolio construction
• Recognising that this is a “Head of” level hire, experience in taking ownership of activity is essential

Why Just?

At Just you’ll have the opportunity to develop your career, whilst making a difference to the lives of those around you. You’ll be part of a company with a strong and distinctive culture - we’re ambitious, curious and collaborative – and every decision we make centres around being Just and delivering the best outcomes for our customers.

We’re committed to building a more sustainable business, and we’re working hard to make progress against our Net Zero targets. We're reducing our reliance on fossil fuels in our offices, switching to more sustainable sources of energy and we're investing more of our money in green and social assets.

Valuing diversity of thought and fostering a sense of belonging is critical to our business success, driving innovation and balanced decision making. Our work on DEIB (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging) aims to deliver a brilliant employee experience underpinned by a sense of belonging, where our people feel proud to work at Just. We remain committed to our publicly disclosed HM Treasury Women in Finance Charter and Race at Work Charter targets and support a wide range of employee network and events, championing issues including intergenerational working, social mobility and neurodiversity.

Be Bold. Be Brilliant. Be Just.

At Just we encourage a flexible and agile working environment for the majority of our opportunities. Get in touch with us to discuss in more detail.