St James's Place ends $12.8 bln mandates with Invesco Perpetual

By Chris Vellacott

LONDON, April 3 (Reuters) - Investment group St James's Place is transferring fund management mandates for 7.7 billion pounds ($12.81 billion) of assets from Invesco (Frankfurt: 3IW.F - news) Perpetual, allocating nearly half to outgoing fund manager Neil Woodford's new venture.

St James's Place, which is about to join London's blue chip FTSE 100 index, outsources management of its range of mutual funds to hand-picked external managers.

Woodford Investment Management, backed by Oakley Capital (LSE: OCL.L - news) Management which Woodford joins in May, will take three mandates with combined assets of 3.65 billion pounds, currently managed by Invesco Perpetual, St James's Place Chief Investment Officer Chris Ralph told Reuters.

These are the 650 million pounds UK Equity fund, the 1.56 billion pounds Income Distribution fund and the 1.4 billion pounds UK High Income unit trust. Woodford, who announced plans to leave Invesco Perpetual in October, has managed St James's Place funds since 2001.

Mandates for two other funds with combined assets of 3.35 billion pounds transfer from Invesco Perpetual to fund manager Threadneedle Investments. Management of a 720 million pounds Global Equity Income fund goes to Manulife Asset Management.

The changes do not affect Invesco (NYSE: IVZ - news) 's assets under management.

Invesco Perpetual continues to manage a corporate bond mandate for St James's Place with assets of around 1 billion pounds.

($1 = 0.6012 British Pounds) (Reporting by Chris Vellacott. Editing by Elaine Hardcastle)