If you see a crowd of slickly dressed folks converging on Fenchurch Street anytime soon, it may well be a flock of headhunters setting off from Aviva Investors, where four of their best known investors have departed for pastures new.

The global equity trio of Richard Saldanha, Francois De Bruin and Matt Kirby have all left. Royal London Asset Management are declining to comment on rumours they are the next home for the trio. 

Royal London’s global equity desk likely has a few empty chairs after the resignation of head of equities Peter Rutter and colleagues. 

Saldanha and his colleagues managed about £2bn across a range of strategies. The flagship was probably the Aviva Investors Global Equity Income fund, which is over £500mn in size but owned by just one of the allocators we cover. 

Evenlode Global Income and Guinness Global Equity Income - which both take a very quality-first approach which is likely to reduce volatility - are by far more preferred by the allocators in our database.

Having said that, the Aviva fund has performed well, being comfortably top quartile over one, three and five years - though its yield is towards the bottom of the table in its sector.

They also run over £500mn in the Global Equity Endurance fund, which is not run by any of the allocators we cover, similar to the Global Social Transition Equity fund. 

Commenting on the changes to the global equity income team, a representative of Aviva Investors said: “In light of these departures, we are working with the managers on an orderly transition, and we will be hiring to bolster the global equity team in due course. These strategies will continue to benefit from our team-based and analyst-led investment process.

"In the interim, Global Equity Income will be led by Ed Kevis with Betty Sanchez Torres as assistant portfolio manager. Global Equity Endurance will be led by Max Burns with the support of Temidayo Oni-Iyiola, currently assistant portfolio manager on the strategy. Sustainable Stewardship International Equity will continue to be managed by Ed Kevis with Jonathan Toub stepping up to support.Social Transition Global Equity will be led by Jonathan Toub."

Of course if DFMs prefer a low volatility approach from their global equity income funds, this will mean hiring someone who will change the fund's style relatively dramatically which will likely prompt a period of upheaval. Plenty for Aviva to ponder.