Steven Gooden, general manager of Pan Caribbean Asset Management Limited, has resigned from the post after more than two years in the job to take up 'a new opportunity'.

Sources in the know say Gooden will be joining NCB Capital Markets, which has been recruiting talent having lost a number of its senior staff in the past year or two.

His last day on the job at Pan Caribbean was yesterday, giving him a month's reprieve, the Financial Gleaner was advised, before he takes on his new job at the Chris Williams-led NCB Capital Markets.

Gooden is the second member of Pan Caribbean executive management team to exit the company since last year.

In October 2008, Henry Pratt, managing director of the newly-formed Pan Caribbean Bank Limited, resigned leaving the three-month-old operation that he helped transition from a merchant bank to a commercial bank.

Top ten brokerage

Both the commercial bank and the asset management company are subsidiaries of Pan Caribbean Financial Services, a top ten brokerage with on balance sheet assets as at December 2007 totalling $49.8 billion, and off balance sheet funds under management of approximately $36 billion.

Gooden after a foray in portfolio management and investment analysis rejoined Pan Caribbean in July 2006 to head the company subsidiary's asset management company, whose principal activity is that of unit trust management.

Gooden who has a masters degree in finance and economics from the University of Southampton manages three unit trust funds: Sigma Solutions, Sigma Optima and Sigma Liberty.

Pan Caribbean in 2007 captured 42 per cent of the unit trust market which was valued at $16.9 billion, with its Sigma products continuing to maintain dominance for four consecutive years.

However, since last year the unit trust market has reflected some decline and is now valued at $11.6 billion as at the end of December 2008, with Pan Caribbean still dominant.

sabrina.gordon@gleanerjm.com