Fiserv has announced several new appointments within Financial Control Solutions at Fiserv, formerly CheckFree ORM. Having filled the role in an interim capacity since last September, Elizabeth Elkins has been named general manager of Financial Control Solutions. Bolstering the leadership team is Andrew Thompson, who has been appointed vice president for Global Sales and Relationship Management, reporting to Elkins. Thompson has served in a variety of leadership roles for the reconciliation practices which today comprise Financial Control Solutions. Also joining is Roy Williamson who will serve as sales director for the United Kingdom, Middle East and Africa regions, reporting to Elkins. Based in the company’s London office, Williamson is responsible for furthering the reach and value provided to customers in the region.
List Group has announced the appointment of Antonio Attanasio as Chief Marketing Officer and Marco De Matti as Sales Manager to raise its profile globally. Attanasio will oversee List’s marketing strategy and will also take on the role of Sales and Marketing Director at List’s quantitative finance division, FMR Consulting. He brings over 20 years of experience gained at Reuters, Dow Jones and GL Trade. De Matti, will be responsible for developing List’s sales pipeline and has extensive expertise in compliance and business process management solutions from his previous post at business process management software company Ultimus. Enrico Dameri, List’s President, commented: “Antonio and Marco have excellent experience and will help us accelerate the growth of our business globally. Despite the financial crisis and challenging market conditions our multi-asset class and operational risk analysis solutions are in demand as they enable financial institutions to streamline and improve efficiencies from a single, flexible platform.”
SPM has officially announced that Marc Holtz has joined the firm as its Head of Risk Management. Holtz, also a Managing Director, will help develop, maintain and manage the quantitative models that will enable SPM continue to most effectively manage market risk. “We have always placed a heavy emphasis on managing our risk across all asset classes and vehicles, and Marc will enable us to continue doing so as effectively as possible,” said Don Brownstein, CEO and Chief Investment Officer at SPM. Previously, Holtz was an adviser to the CEO at CIFG, a global monoline insurance company. While there, he led the effort to develop and execute alternative re-insurance strategies and products, and oversaw the development and implementation of quantitative risk management models and systems. Before his time at CIFG, Holtz was a managing director at Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein and at UBS, where he was co-head of a team that developed, marketed and executed customized fixed income and equity products.
Newedge has hired Nicolas Breteau as the Global Head of Sales and Front Office. He remains on the Group Executive Committee. Breteau was CEO Newedge Europe and Middle East since the formation of Newedge Group in January 2008. Prior to that, he was CEO and Managing Director for the European Zone of Fimat (which merged with Calyon Financial to form Newedge). He began his career with Fimat in 1993, after serving as an inspector for the Matif (French Derivatives Exchange). Breteau is replaced in his former duties by Amaury De Villemandy, who was formerly Deputy to the CEO Europe and the Middle East with responsibility for sales and front office for Newedge, as he was for Fimat immediately prior to the merger. Newedge CEO Patrice Blanc said, “I have worked closely with both of these individuals for many years and have high expectations and a great deal of enthusiasm for the talent and insight they will bring to their new roles. Nicolas’ career progression within Newedge has given him an extensive view of our products, our clients, and the best means of capturing the opportunities available to us at this critical juncture. Amaury has a wealth of experience and in-depth knowledge of the company and the market to ensure the continuing growth of Newedge Europe & Middle East.”
Gartmore is to appoint Matt Pumo to the role of Business Development Director responsible for its UK Institutional Business. Pumo will report to Gartmore’s Head of Global Institutional, Angus Woolhouse, and is to join in the summer. Pumo joins after an eight year career at Liontrust Asset Management, where he was latterly Senior Relationship Manager for four years, responsible for Institutional clients and Investment Consultant relationships. Prior to this he was Head of Institutional Client Services. Previous employment includes roles at Bankers Trust in New York and London. In addition, Gartmore has also announced the appointment of John Bennett as Senior Portfolio Manager, European Equities. Bennett has a 20-year track record of managing Continental and Pan European Equities and will join from GAM where he has spent the last 16 years. He will report to Dominic Rossi, Gartmore’s Chief Investment Officer. At Gartmore Bennett will assume lead management responsibility for the Gartmore European Select Opportunities and Gartmore SICAV Continental European Funds. In addition John will utilise his considerable Pan European experience to develop a range of Pan European products for Gartmore. Commenting on the appointment, Roger Guy said: “John is a great fund manager. He follows a blended investment process focused on large-cap stocks similar to the process Guillaume and I use. He has a wealth of experience and a long standing track record of success which will expand and diversify our European Equity capabilities. I look forward to working with John and am delighted that he has decided to join us.” Furthermore, Gartmore has appointed Luke Newman as Portfolio Manager to its UK team. He is to work with Ben Wallace on the recently launched Gartmore UK Absolute Return and award-winning AlphaGen Octanis Funds.
Newscape Capital Group has hired Derek Fulton, an ex- Head of Global Closed End Fixed Income Portfolios at Aberdeen Asset Management. Fulton has been appointed as a Board Director and the firm’s new Chief Investment Officer with overall responsibility for asset allocation, strategy selection, portfolio construction and portfolio management. Fulton has been managing global fixed income and associated multi-strategy portfolios for nearly fifteen years. While at Aberdeen Asset Management, Derek held a variety of senior investment positions including Head of Asian Fixed Income in Singapore, and Head of Global Fixed Income Portfolios in London. Fulton started his career as a Global Fixed Income Portfolio manager for Murray Johnstone Ltd in Glasgow. He is based at the firm’s headquarters in London and will chair Newscape’s investment committee. Stephen Decani, Chief Executive of Newscape Capital Group commented: “This is a significant coup for Newscape and we are delighted that an investment professional of Derek’s standing within the industry has decided to join us. Derek brings a great track-record and a high-level of international portfolio management experience and expertise to the firm. He also fits perfectly into the client focused “back to basics” ethos which we are working hard to establish here.”
Spencer-Churchill Miller Private has appointed Simeon Downes as Senior Investment Analyst. Downes will work directly with Alan Miller providing rigorous analysis to support the firm’s low cost and transparent asset management proposition that features two broad investment portfolios consisting entirely of Exchange Traded Funds. Prior to joining Spencer-Churchill Miller Private, Downes was Sales and Relationship Manager at RiskMetrics Group (formerly CFRA), an independent equity research company, responsible for research highlighting companies at risk. Prior to that Downes was with Berwin Lloyd Boughton & Partners advising clients of company recommended stock picks and news flow for equities in client portfolios. Alan Miller said: “We’ve been thrilled by the huge interest in our proposition. It’s clear that many high net worth investors are looking for a new approach to wealth management focused on superior performance, fairer charges and greater transparency. Simeon’s appointment will underpin our rigorous research process.”
Coast Asset Management has announced the appointment of hedge fund industry veteran Roy H. Callahan as a portfolio manager and member of the firm’s investment committee. Callahan, 54, joins Coast from Stratos Advisers, a southern California-based hedge fund of funds manager. Previously, Callahan worked at Financial Risk Management where his responsibilities included serving on the investment and portfolio management committees as well as training and mentoring FRM investment analyst groups. He spent six years from 1994-2000 at Santa Monica, CA-based Coast as director of research where he helped Coast founder David Smith develop and launch the firm’s initial multi-manager investment strategies. Earlier in his career, Callahan was director of research for Monmouth Capital, a proprietary trader for GNP Commodities in Chicago, and a vice president at Citibank working in all aspects of interest rate derivative products. “We are thrilled that Roy Callahan has agreed to rejoin our team,” said David Smith, president of Coast. “Roy brings a wealth of knowledge and alternative investments expertise that will be invaluable as we continue to steer Coast through the challenges brought on by the global recession.”
Cheyne Capital Management has appointed Jorge Giampaoli as partner and portfolio manager of the new Cheyne Equity Macro Fund. This fund will follow a short term, liquid, macro-based equity trading strategy. Giampaoli joins Cheyne from Morgan Stanley where he worked for the past eight years, most recently in charge of propriety trading for European equities. Chris Goekjian, Chief Investment Officer, commented, “This is an exciting step for Cheyne to be taking - broadening its equities offerings as well as providing extremely liquid strategies to fit with current investor demand.” “We are very happy to have attracted such a high-quality and successful trader to Cheyne. This is an important strategic addition to our diversified investment proposition at this time of change in the industry,” said Jonathan Lourie, co-Founder and Chief Executive.
Permal Group has announced the appointment of Coby McDonald as Vice President - Global Consultant Relations, with responsibility for managing and developing Permal’s relationships with the investment consulting community. McDonald joined on 15 June and reports to Joshua Levine, Senior Vice President and Head of Permal’s Institutional Sales team. Before Permal, McDonald was at EIM where he was a Director, Consultant Relations. And prior to EIM, he was a Vice President, Global Consultant Relations, at BlackRock. Joshua Levine commented: “Coby is a strong hire for Permal. He has the ideal experience from EIM and BlackRock, and is an excellent addition to our expanding institutional team. Over the last year, we have been seeing accelerated interest from the institutional market, making it all the more important that we can now include a dedicated consultant relations resource on our team.”
Liontrust Asset Management has announced that Ross Hollyman will be joining the company from GAM in January 2010. On joining Liontrust, Hollyman will develop the Global Value, Global Earnings Surprise and Global Multi-Factor equity investment processes in the company’s latest move to diversify its product range. Prior to joining GAM, Hollyman was a senior portfolio manager with JP Morgan Fleming, where he managed UK and European portfolios and worked with Gary West and James Inglis-Jones. Nigel Legge, chief executive of Liontrust, said: “We are delighted that Ross is joining Liontrust. We believe Ross is ideally suited to Liontrust because, like all our managers, he is a process-driven investor.
Capital Z Asset Management has announced the appointment of James M. Marrone, Jr. as CZAM’s Chief Executive Officer. Marrone, who is currently Head of Business Development and Chief Marketing Officer at CZAM, will retain those responsibilities. Marrone replaces Christianna Wood, who resigned to pursue other opportunities effective July 31, 2009. Laurence Cheng, Chairman of CZAM and Founder of its predecessor firm Capital Z Investment Partners, said, “Jim’s appointment as CEO reflects the strong contributions he has made to the firm since joining CZAM. In addition, I want to thank Christy for her strong leadership efforts and her valuable insights into global alternative investment markets. The strategic course she charted will serve as the basis for many promising business opportunities for CZAM, as well as the funds we have previously sponsored.”
Veritas Asset Management has appointed leading Asia specialist Raymond Foo as a Senior Analyst to strengthen its top performing Asia team. Based in Hong Kong, Foo will work closely with Ezra Sun who spearheads the firm’s suite of market leading Asia long only and long/short funds. Sun was recently awarded the highest available rating by the OBSR, making him one of only two Asia fund managers across the entire OBSR range to receive the AAA rating. Foo, who joins from Brevan Howard Asset Management, has the unique distinction of being rated number one by institutional investors in the three separate categories of Regional Strategy, China strategy and Regional Economics. Foo was formerly Brevan Howard’s Chief Asian Strategist, and was Portfolio Manager on the firm’s Emerging Market Strategies Fund. Here he was responsible for managing the Asian equity portfolios. Prior to this, Foo was Head of Economics and Strategy Research at BNP Paribas Peregrine in Hong Kong where he was responsible for identifying key macro trends and turning points in markets and managing a team of strategists and economists spread across Hong Kong, Singapore and Beijing. During this time, Foo was consistently ranked top strategist by institutional investors. Ezra Sun commented: “We are honoured that Raymond has chosen to join us. Over the last 15 years, Raymond has consistently proven that he is one of the outstanding investment specialists across Asian markets. I have known Raymond for most of this period, and I am convinced his appointment will send a clear signal to our investors that Veritas is only interested in the highest quality professionals and is constantly raising the bar for our Asia offering and ambitions.”
The children’s charity, ARK, has announced that Stanley Fink is to become chairman of the ARK trustees, taking over from founding chairman, Arpad Busson who has held the post for the seven years since the charity launched. Busson will remain a member of the Board as founding chairman, and chairman of ARK US. Fink has been on the board of trustees since 2004, is the sponsor and chair of governors of ARK’s first academy, Burlington Danes in Hammersmith, and a co-chairman of ARK’s education charity ARK Academies. Outgoing Chairman, Arpad Busson, said: “I am delighted that Stanley has agreed to take the chair. He is a tremendous asset to ARK and makes a formidable contribution as an ARK trustee and to Burlington Danes Academy and ARK Academies. “It has been a great privilege to chair ARK’s board of trustees at a time when ARK’s effectiveness in delivering real life-changing improvements to children has grown hugely – and far beyond our hopes when we began. It has been a privilege to be the Chairman of ARK, and I want to thank my fellow trustees for their leadership, immense effort and support. The strength of the institution of ARK is the collective effort of its board and programmes, working as a team. I look forward to supporting Stanley as he leads the trustees to further success.” Stanley Fink said: “It is a great honour to succeed Arki, whose energy and commitment have played an enormous role in ARK’s achievements. As the driving force behind ARK from its inception he has been an inspiring chairman. He makes an unparalleled contribution not only to winning support for ARK but also to driving our programmes forward, challenging everyone to give their best and never yielding in his demand that ARK can and must do more. ARK’s work in health, education and child welfare has never been more vital. If you can offer a child a good education and good health you can change their life. ARK has helped improve the lives of 120,000 children. I look forward to working with the trustees and staff to ensure we reach many more.”
RBC Capital Markets has hired Minako Endo as Director Head of Institutional Fixed Income Sales in its Tokyo office. Endo joins RBC Capital Markets from Merrill Lynch in Japan, where she was Director of Non-Yen Bond Sales. Prior to this Endo was a Vice President at Deutsche Bank, focusing on non-yen bond sales. Commenting on the appointment, Andrew Nemec, Head of Fixed Income & Currencies, Japan, RBC Capital Markets, said: “Minako’s arrival strengthens our growing platform in Tokyo and is part of our commitment to continue growing our business in Asia. We are able to expand our footprint in this way because of the strength and stability of our enterprise.” RBC Capital Markets also announced that it has hired Chris Tam as Director in its Hong Kong office. Both Asian hires follow the announcement last week that RBC Capital Markets has recently bolstered its European platform, hiring Carmine Meoli, Arif Hussein and Peter Drewienkiewicz to work in its Fixed Income & Currencies sales and trading team in London. RBC Capital Markets has continued to make senior hires during the market dislocation, hiring in excess of 300 people throughout its global capital markets operations over the last twelve months.
Henderson Global Investors has made a number of appointments to its structured products team in response to growing demand for these products. Elissa Johnson joins from credit hedge fund, Apollo Management International, where she was Principal and made a significant contribution to the development of Apollo Investment Europe for the last two years. Nicholas Ware-Fredriksson joins from Highland Capital Management Europe where he was a Senior Portfolio Analyst for the past four years and part of a team managing €2.5bn of European leveraged loans and high yield bonds. Stef Abelli joins from BayernLB, where she was a Director of Acquisition and Leverage Finance for over two years. Following the recent launch of Henderson’s European ABS Opportunity Fund, Jason Walker joined the structured products team on 6 July 2009 as ABS Portfolio Manager reporting to Colin Fleury, Head of ABS Investments. In addition, Dan Maynard has recently been hired as a Fixed Income Product Specialist, reporting to Mitesh Sheth. Commenting, Jim Irvine, says: “We have looked at how we can take advantage of available talent, reputation and experience at Henderson to reshape our structured products business in response to client demand and opportunity. Already we have repositioned ourselves to fill a variety of work out roles within the structured products arena, most notably within an advisory role to the receivers of the Sigma SIV. We expect to play a similar role in the loans space and are working on consolidation opportunities.”
EIM Management USA, the US affiliate of the EIM Group, has announced that Keith Thomas has joined the Firm as a Director, Business Development. Thomas will be responsible for broadening EIM USA’s relationships, particularly with public funds, endowments and foundations, and family offices. He will report to Antonio Munoz, CEO of EIM USA. “We are delighted to have Keith as a new member of the EIM USA team,” said Munoz. “His experience and talent will allow us to continue growing our business as more investors seek EIM’s global reach to managers and portfolio management skills through our separately managed account platform.”
UBP Asset Management has announced that Jonathan Morgan will join the firm as Head of Research of alternative investment. Morgan, a 16 year veteran of the alternative investments industry, was previously Managing Director and Head of the Hedge Fund Management Group, “HFMG,” for Barclays Global Investors. “Jon is one of the most seasoned executives in the hedge fund industry with research, portfolio management and trading experience spanning both fund of funds, as well as individual funds,” said Matthew Stadtmauer, Chief Executive Officer of UBP Asset Management. Prior to joining Barclays in 2005, Morgan was Director of Research and Portfolio Management at Julius Baer, where he was instrumental in establishing an institutional research infrastructure and expanding the firm’s reach from the high net worth market into the institutional market. In addition, UBP has also announced that veteran fund manager Sara Sprung will join the firm as Chief Investment Officer of alternative investment. Sprung was previously a Portfolio Manager at Fortress Investment Group, and worked as Chief Risk Officer of the liquid markets business of Fortress. This is a newly created position. “Sara’s extensive macro trading and risk management background, and a well-developed world view, is the ideal fit for this newly created role of CIO of alternative investment,” said Matthew Stadtmauer, Chief Executive Officer of UBP Asset Management. “This is one of many steps we are taking to reinforce our commitment to alternative investments and proactively position the firm with hands on expertise in trading and risk management, which is clearly of benefit to our clients.” Sprung will determine strategic top down, global asset allocation for the funds and solutions offered by the firm. Sprung’s appointment underscores UBP’s continuing commitment to alternative investments and its commitment to enhancing and further strengthening its research and investment processes. She will report to Matthew Stadtmauer. “UBPAM is a pioneer in hedge fund investing and remains a leader and innovator in the industry,” said Sprung. “I am looking forward to joining the firm as it continues to create innovative strategies for its investors and to set new standards of investing in the hedge fund industry.” Sprung has over 15 years of experience in managing global macro portfolios and risk management. At Fortress, in addition to serving most recently as Portfolio Manager for the Drawbridge Global Macro Fund, she served as Fortress’ Chief Risk Officer in the liquids market business from 2006 to 2007. Prior to that, she was a Portfolio Manager at Moore Capital Management. From 1999 to 2005 she served as Managing Director at JP Morgan. Sprung started her career as a mortgage trader at Salomon Brothers and also traded derivatives at Bankers Trust. She received a BS in Management Science from MIT in 1984.
Bart De Smet, acting CEO of Fortis since July 1 2009, has been co-opted by the Board of Directors of Fortis SA/NV in Belgium. A proposal to appoint De Smet an executive member of the Board of Directors of Fortis SA/NV, for a period of three years will be submitted during the next General Meeting of Shareholders of Fortis SA/NV. An Extraordinary General Meeting of Shareholders will be convened on 18 September 2009 in the Netherlands to appoint De Smet an executive member of the Board of Fortis N.V. as from 1 July 2009, until the end of the annual General Meeting of Shareholders of 2013. De Smet’s term of office is in line with the recommendations of the Dutch Corporate Governance Code (i.e. a maximum of four years). He does not hold any directorships at any other listed company.
Mourant International Finance Administration has appointed Matthew Wood as Managing Director of its Guernsey office. Wood has 12 years’ experience in the finance industry and joined the firm’s Guernsey office in 2004 as Head of Accounting. His time at Mourant has also included spells in its London office with responsibility for the firm’s European private equity business development and in Dubai where he oversaw business development in the Gulf region. Returning to Guernsey, Wood will now assume responsibility for managing the growth plans of the Guernsey office as well as overseeing client service teams. Iain Stokes, Group Managing Director at Mourant International Finance Administration, commented: “We are delighted to welcome Matthew back to the island in his new role as Managing Director. Matthew will be pivotal in driving the business forward and the strong contacts and experience he has built up since joining Mourant in 2004 will play a major part in expanding the business.”
