Jason Appleson, a veteran portfolio manager and former analyst, will officially take the helm of the municipal bond team at global asset management firm PGIM Fixed Income at the start of 2022.
Appleson will join the firm on Nov. 1 as he prepares to assume the duties of current managing director and municipal department head Susan Courtney, who will retire effective Jan. 1 after 16 years with the firm.
PGIM Fixed Income currently manages more than $31 billion of municipal assets.
Courtney, whose career spans 35 years of investment experience, joined the firm in 2005 after a decade with GE Asset Management, where she was a municipal bond portfolio manager responsible for $4.7 billion in tax-exempt assets for insurance companies.
Prior to her career at GE, Courtney was assistant vice president of the Global Power Group at Fitch Investors Services, Inc., and a senior analyst in the unit investment trust department of Dean Witter Reynolds.
Appleson will assume Courtney’s responsibility for developing, directing, and executing investment strategy for all municipal bond assets, including municipal bond mutual funds.
He will report to Richard Greenwood, head of credit for PGIM Fixed Income and be headquartered in the Newark, N.J. office.
“Jason brings strong capabilities in municipal bond portfolio management and relative value analysis, as well as proven investment leadership to our municipal bond team,” Greenwood said in an Oct. 18 press release.
Appleson, who brings nearly 15 years of experience to the firm, comes to PGIM from his most recent role as portfolio manager for PT Asset Management’s Morningstar five-star rated Performance Trust Municipal Bond Fund (ticker: PTIMX) with $891 million of assets, where he led the portfolio construction, management, trading, and research for the fund.
Prior to PT Asset Management he spent time at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York as a credit risk associate, as well as AllianceBernstein as an analyst supporting the firm’s $30 billion municipal fund complex.
“With continued strong flows into the municipal category, Jason’s expertise will prove immediately valuable to our clients who look to municipal bonds as a key part of their fixed-income portfolio,” Greenwood added.
Overall, PGIM Fixed Income, a global asset manager offering active solutions across all fixed income markets, has $954 billion of assets under management as of June 30, 2021.
Besides Newark, the company has offices in London, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Zurich, Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Singapore.
The firm is part of PGIM, the global asset management business of Prudential Financial Inc., which is among the top 10 largest asset managers in the world, with $1.5 trillion of assets under management as of June 30, according to the press release.
