Rabobank International, the global business division of AAA rated Rabobank Nederland, announced the creation of a New York based Equity and Fund Derivatives Team within its Global Financial Markets (GFM) group. The New York team will focus on clients and business in the Americas region and complement the bank's existing global equity and fund derivatives business, currently managed in London and Hong Kong. The Americas team will primarily focus on serving clients in the asset management, hedge funds, insurance, and pension sectors. The group will also seek to expand the breadth of Rabobank's existing retail equity derivatives product line, distributed through major third party broker-dealers. The team will be led by Mark Garbin, Managing Director and Head of Equity and Fund Derivatives for Rabobank in the Americas, who joined Rabobank in early July. Key members of the Americas team include Joseph D'Anna, PhD, CFA, Managing Director and head of Equity and Fund Derivatives Structuring; Igor Tydniouk, PhD, Vice President responsible for quantitative development; Marius Kerdel, Vice President of Structured Product Sales and Origination; and Mark van der Straaten, Vice President of Structured Product Sales and Origination. The group expects to add additional staff in the coming months. Garbin was formerly Managing Director and Managing Principal of SG Constellation, a structured finance affiliate of Societe Generale. He was a co-founder of Constellation Financial Management Company, LLC, a global structured finance boutique which was acquired by Societe Generale in 2003. D'Anna was most recently a Director and Senior Financial Engineer in the Equity Derivatives group at Societe Generale Securities USA, and also served as Chief Investment Officer of Catalyst Re, SG's reinsurance subsidiary. Prior to that, he was Managing Director and Head of Capital Raising and Securitization at Constellation Financial Management Company before its acquisition by Societe Generale. He joined Rabobank in April 2006. Tydniouk came to Rabobank in April from Nomura Securities International Capital Solutions Group, where he was a quantitative systems engineer. Tydniouk also worked at Constellation Financial Management, where he was the chief architect of risk evaluation and management systems. Kerdel joined Rabobank's GFM Sales and Origination Team in New York in 2005, and currently leads the structured products sales and origination effort for the US marketplace. Previously, he was a Vice President in the mergers and acquisition team of Rabo Securities in Amsterdam before moving to Rabo Securities USA, Inc. in 2004. Kerdel has been with the Rabobank organization since 1998. Van der Straaten joined Rabobank's GFM Sales and Origination Team in New York as Execution Manager in 2005, and is currently a salesperson in the same team. Previously, he was legal counsel for Rabobank in Utrecht and for Rabo Securities in Amsterdam before moving to Rabo Securities USA, Inc. in 2004. Van der Straaten has been with the Rabobank organization since 2000. The creation of a New York-based Equity and Fund Derivatives group to manage Rabobank's business in the Americas is consistent with Rabobank's localized business strategy, which relies on regional knowledge to capitalize on local market opportunities. Rabobank's global Equity and Fund Derivatives business is led by Yin Wu and has teams based in London, Hong Kong and now New York
MSCI Barra, a leading provider of benchmark indices and risk management analytics products, announced that David Brierwood has joined the firm as a Managing Director and Chief Operating Officer. Brierwood will be based in London and report to Henry Fernandez, MSCI Barra's President and Chief Executive Officer. Brierwood joins MSCI Barra after a 20-year career at Morgan Stanley where he held a variety of senior positions in both London and New York. His experience includes Global Risk Manager of the Morgan Stanley Equity Division, Chief Operating Officer of Morgan Stanley's securities businesses, and, most recently, leading Morgan Stanley's firmwide program to implement global regulation relating to Basel II and the SEC's Consolidated Supervisory Entity agreements. Brierwood's primary focus will be on taking MSCI Barra's product capabilities, data quality, software and related products and services to the next level of development, commensurate with meeting and exceeding the needs of MSCI Barra's clients worldwide.
State Street Global Advisors (SSgA) , the largest institutional money manager in the world, announced a major expansion of its alternative strategies capabilities. This new initiative encompasses a significant broadening of SSgA's traditional long-short strategies to include a new line-up of cutting edge absolute return strategies, an infusion of new investment professionals, and a joint development relationship with an innovative quantitative investment management boutique. The current staff of investment professionals is led by Chris Woods, and was recently expanded to include new high profile hires of Jonathan Chanis, Henri Fouda, and Todor Georgiev formerly of Caxton Associates, Mellon Capital Management and KBC Alternative Asset Management, respectively. The three bring with them experience managing emerging market, commodity, global macro and capital structure arbitrage strategies. Woods and his team report to Sean Flannery, CIO North America and to Jane Tisdale, senior managing director of Absolute Return Strategies. The team is also supported by SSgA's Advanced Research Center, a group of more than 25 analysts with advanced degrees in mathematics and applied finance disciplines.
Private wealth manager, Saltus Partners, has appointed Mark Halford to the position of Chief Financial Officer - a newly created position at the company. He will join as a partner, and will have overall responsibility for driving the financial and operational strategy of the business. Halford joins Saltus from Majedie Investments PLC, where he was the Financial Controller. Before working at Majedie he was Finance Manager in the corporate finance and investment banking group of Macquarie Bank, having previously held senior analyst positions at UBS in Australia and UBS Warburg in London. Saltus is an investment manager specialising in alternative assets such as hedge funds, private equity and commercial property, as well as tailor-made tax solutions. Clients include high net worth families, trusts and charities. Saltus is also the manager of Acencia Debt Strategies Limited.
FrontPoint Partners, the $5.5 billion Greenwich-based investment management firm, announced that Kevin Caliendo will join the firm as a member of the Healthcare team. Caliendo will also assume the role of co-Portfolio Manager for future healthcare investment products. "Kevin brings considerable expertise in the healthcare industry, having invested across the US, Europe and Japan in both equity and debt. Kevin's addition to the Healthcare team represents Jason [Bonadio], Ajay [Bhalla] and my continued commitment to adding experienced investment talent to our team," said Dr. Chip Skowron, co-Portfolio Manager of the FrontPoint Healthcare Fund. Caliendo formerly served as Managing Director at Salomon Brothers Asset Management where he was lead portfolio manager for the $1.7bn long-only cap equity strategy. Prior to joining Salomon Brothers in 2002, he was an Equity Analyst and Convertible Portfolio Manager at SAC Capital. Throughout his 12 year investment career, Caliendo has also worked with Wachovia Securities, ING Barings, Bear Stearns and Smith Barney. He has a BA from Boston University.
IKOS has made four new appointments as part of its five year strategic plan, announced at the beginning of 2005, which has seen a major programme of investment in the firm's UK and Cyprus infrastructure. Paul Eaton has been appointed Operation Manager (Cyprus). His focus will encompass responsibility for post-trading activity, cash management, and shareholder operations. He was previously a consultant for hedge funds and funds of funds in the sphere of operations development assignments, and held positions such as Senior Account Manager and Managing Director for Global Clearing Services. Chris Conway was named Global Human Resources Manager, and will head the HR function. His focus will be to drive business growth and recruitment, and develop the firm's organizational structure as outlined in the strategic plan. Conway has worked in the financial services, professional services, and insurance sectors. For the last three years, he provided resource as a consultant to Schroders, RBS, Merrill Lynch, and Citigroup on HR projects, including restructurings, business disposals, redeployments, and recruitment projects. Effie Anagnostopoulos has been appointed Business Development Manager, and will focus on expanding IKOS' trading into new markets, supporting the development of new products, strategic marketing and internal process control. She was most recently a trader/researcher at a systematic short term futures and currency trading fund based in New York, and prior to this she held the positions of Hedge Fund Allocator and Trader in the foreign exchange business. Anagnostopoulos has an MBA from Harvard Business School and is a founder of 100 Women in Hedge Funds in the UK. David Burns, as the new Internal Audit and Risk Manager, will focus on providing IKOS with independent assurance on the effectiveness of controls relating to the group's regulatory, operational, finance and client risks. Burns previously worked with Morgan Stanely, Cofunds, United Bank of Kuwait, and ING in internal audit, compliance, and risk management. He also worked as an Audit Senior with Coopers & Lybrand. He is a qualified Chartered Accountant with a BSc in Accounting and Finance.
Eoin Murray has been appointed Old Mutual Asset Managers' (UK) Chief Investment Officer. Murray brings considerable investment experience to the role, most recently as Head of OMAM's Quantitative Strategies team. In this role, Murray has been successful in building and diversifying this part of the business, which manages a range of hedge funds, unit trusts, and institutional mandates covering global equity markets. Murray takes over the role from Peter Baxter, who had been CIO since September 2000, and who remains Chief Executive Officer, having been appointed to this role in April 2005. OMAM said there would be no change to its investment approach of autonomous, independent teams operating within clearly defined risk parameters across its product range of hedge funds, unit trusts, structured products, and multi-asset funds. The quantitative research area and investment managers will continue to report directly to Murray.
CME, the world's largest and most diverse financial exchange, has announced that Tina Lemieux, a 10-year CME veteran who previously served as head of the company's equity product team, will lead a new team designed to expand CME's global customer base by serving current hedge fund and active retail customers and attracting new hedge fund customers to CME's diverse group of benchmark products. Lemieux will continue to report to Rick Redding, Managing Director, CME Products & Services. She will continue to lead CME's equity product group as the company conducts a search for her successor. Before assuming this new role as Managing Director, Hedge Fund and Broker Services, Lemieux worked to develop hedge fund and retail business as head of the CME equity product line. She previously served as Director, CME Equity Products and held foreign exchange and technology marketing positions for CME. Before joining the company in 1995, she worked for Enskilda Securities' marketing and treasury sales areas in the firm's London office, where she was responsible for selling foreign exchange products to hedge funds. She also headed the London office of Indosuez Carr Futures, worked as a Marketing Director at Dellsher Investment Company, and served as a futures broker for First Chicago NBD Corp. The new Hedge Fund and Broker Services group will be assisted by CME's Europe and Asia offices and will also include Kelly Brown, Director, Hedge Funds and Mark Omens, Associate Director, Broker Services in Chicago.
CarbonBased Consulting, an established research and advisory firm for the investment management industry, is strengthening and deepening its consulting and research teams with several recent hires, including two veterans of the hedge fund and alternative asset management industry. Jackie Mandel will oversee consulting to Global Macro, CTA, Arbitrage and Fund of Fund clients at CarbonBased. Mandel has 20 years of hedge fund and investment banking experience. She was a Vice President at Goldman Sachs in the Equity Derivatives Group for seven and a half years prior to joining CarbonBased. Before that she was a trader at Julian Robertson's Tiger Management for four years, responsible for a $2.5 billion commodity and commodity derivative portfolio. Also joining the consulting side is Neil R. Gottlieb who brings over 30 years of experience to CarbonBased, with a specialization in portfolio optimization and risk models. As a senior business consultant, Gottlieb will be in charge of risk management and portfolio analytics for clients. Gottlieb most recently worked as an independent consultant on a variety of longer-term technology and trading projects for clients that included Pequot Capital, Sailfish Capital, and Basso Capital. During his extensive career, he has worked for Bloomberg L.P, as a Director - Product Management and was Director of Product Development for APT, Inc., a leading equity-based risk analytics provider from 1989 through 1998. Ralph Lafferty, who has two years experience in risk management as well as four years of research and securities execution, and Russell Smith, a seasoned professional with over ten years in financial management experience, both joined Carbon360 as research analysts.
Caliburn Capital Partners, an institutional alternative asset manager, today has announced the appointment of Pawel Kisielewski. With over 20 years financial services experience, predominantly in institutional equity sales, Kisielewski will be responsible for overseeing client development activity for Caliburn. Kisielewski joins from Merrill Lynch, where for six years he created and ran the Global Technnology sales team, covering fund management clients, both long only and Absolute Return within the European market. Kisielewski was also responsible for marketing Merrill Lynch's Technology equity research product covering in excess of 350 companies around the world. Before joining Merrill Lynch in 1999, Kisielewski headed up Deusche Bank Securities' London based Pan-European equity sales team, comprising generalists, small company and industry specialists. In 1990, he joined Credit Suisse First Boston working within the team that took the firm into Pan-European equities for the first time. Here he was also jointly responsible for leading the sales and marketing strategy for the new equity markets of Emerging Europe.
Lehman Brothers has named Stéphane Rougier as a managing director and global head of Structured Asset Management. He will report to Omar Abukhadra, global head of Investment Management Division Structured Products and European Head of Absolute Return Strategies. Prior to joining Lehman Brothers, Rougier was global head of Structured and Indexed Investments at BNP Paribas Asset Management in Paris, where his responsibilities included launching and building the Structured Asset Management platform. This included actively managed structured assets as well as formula funds, index funds, and ETFs.
The EDHEC Risk and Asset Management Research Centre has named seven new members to its international advisory board. The board brings together distinguished scholars, representatives of regulatory bodies, and senior executives from business partners and other leading institutions. The new members are David Blackwood, Group Treasurer with Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) since 2001 and also currently project director for ICI's cross-divisional finance function excellence project; Louis Chaillet, Global Risk Manager with ABP Investments; Theo Jeurissen, Director of Investments at Dutch pension fund PMT and chairman of the investors committee of the Dutch association of pension funds; Philip Lambert, Global Head of Corporate Pensions at Unilever and former chairman of the Dutch National Association of Company Pension Funds (OPF) and the European Federation for Retirement Provision (EFRP); and Peter Reitz, Member of the Executive Board of Eurex and currently a Managing Director of Deutsche Börse AG. EDHEC also said it has appointed Nicolas-Jean Brehon as Associate Economics Research Director as part of the establishment of a new Economics research centre. He will be responsible for the research program focusing on European Budgetary Governance. Brehon is an adviser to the French parliament, where he was notably responsible for monetary issues within the European Union for the Finance Committee. He is also a lecturer at Paris 1 Panthèon Sorbonne University. Considered to be an eminent specialist in European budgetary issues, he also writes a monthly column for the French national newspaper, Le Monde.
Charlemagne Capital, the specialist emerging markets equity investment management group, has appointed Sonal Patel as Head of Risk Management. Patel has extensive risk management experience, and prior to joining Charlemagne was at Morgan Stanley Capital International/Barra, where she worked as a consultant focusing on hedge fund, sell side and new market clients. Her work involved detailed risk and performance analysis of client portfolios as well as demonstrating portfolio construction capabilities incorporating specific constraints. Prior to joining MSCI/Barra, she worked with Thomson Financial in New York. Patel has a Masters degree in International Political and Economic Development (with a focus on emerging markets) from Fordham University in New York.
Luc Leleux has been appointed as Director Business Development of Fortis' Prime Fund Solutions in Luxembourg. Prime Fund Solutions is the entity within Fortis Merchant Banking that provides a full range of products and services to all types of investment funds, including hedge funds and funds of funds. Fortis serves alternative and mutual funds ranging from administration and custody to financing. In his new role, Leleux will head up the sales team focused on diversifying and developing the client base of Prime Fund Solutions in Luxembourg. Prior to joining the bank, Leleux was Director of Business Development for Continental Europe at RBC-Dexia Investor Services Trust London. Before that, he held different positions in the investment fund industry in Luxembourg, ranging from custody at Banque Privée Edmond de Rothschild, relationship management at Chase Manhattan Bank, and sales at State Street Bank. He will report to Loris Di Vora, Commercial Director of Prime Fund Solutions in Luxembourg.
Following completion of its leveraged buyout from Liberty Group in May, Ermitage has announced a significant development with the appointment of Nick Macleod, who was a leading light at rival fund of hedge fund house, FRM. Macleod has joined Ermitage as Head of Quantitative Research & Risk Management reporting to Chief Operating Officer, Mark Hucker, and brings 13 years' hedge fund experience with an emphasis on quantitative strategies, risk measurement and portfolio construction. Based in Jersey, Macleod heads up a dedicated Portfolio Construction & Risk team of four professionals, which works alongside Ermitage's Hedge Fund Research team. His appointment is seen by Ermitage as the final piece of the jigsaw in taking the company's quantitative research and risk management capability to the next level, and coincides with the company recently breaking through the $2bn assets under management barrier in alternative investments. Macleod, whose views and analysis have been published by several journals, is a Fellow of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications and a Chartered Mathematician, amongst other qualifications. Ermitage has invested significantly during recent years in the refinement of its proprietary hedge fund database - LEWIS - which is complemented by specialist best of breed analysis software.
