Head announced for Perpetual Asset Management

Duncan was an executive director at Macquarie Group and helped establish the firm's presence in New Zealand and into Asia.

He will start in the role immediately, under the guidance of a board chaired by George Kerr and including Bryan Mogridge, Bruce Irvine and Pyne Gould chief executive Jeff Greenslade.

The finance group plans to become a bank and it is creating an enlarged funds management unit after agreeing to buy Equity Partners Asset Management, an asset manager controlled by Pyne director George Kerr, for $18 million.

As part of the group's rearrangements, the parent will acquire $160 million of impaired or likely to be impaired loans from its MARAC unit. The loans will subsequently be acquired by a new unit, Torchlight Credit Fund, part of Perpetual.