Simon Gergel is Chief Investment Officer, UK Equities and is head of the Value & Income Investment Style Team. He manages The Merchants Trust plc and the Allianz UK Equity Income Fund. He joined AllianzGI in April 2006 from HSBC Halbis Partners, where he was Head of Institutional UK Equities. At HSBC Simon was the portfolio manager of the HSBC Income Funds, with assets under management of £950 million. He also managed a number of segregated institutional accounts. Prior to HSBC, Simon was an Executive Director at Phillips & Drew Fund Management Ltd (a subsidiary of UBS), where he spent 14 years as a portfolio manager with responsibility for £1 billion of segregated pension fund assets and also with direct responsibility for £500 million of UK equity assets. Simon graduated from Cambridge University in 1987 with an MA (Hons) Cantab in Mathematics. He is an Associate Member of UKSIP.