Hedge fund openings for corporate financiers
Headhunters say opportunities are increasing for corporate financiers who want to quit investment banks for hedge funds.
"As merger volumes rise, there may well be increased demand for corporate financiers to move into hedge funds," says David Durham, managing director of search firm Durham Consulting. "Their skill set is likely to be in increasing demand with firms running merger arbitrage strategies," he predicts.
The proliferation of opportunities for corporate financiers follows the news that Benoit D'Angelin, Lehman's longstanding head of European investment banking, is joining London-based Centaurus Capital. The company runs, Centaurus Alpha Fund, a $2.5bn event driven hedge fund, which is among those backing Macquarie Bank's bid for the London Stock Exchange.
Last year, event driven hedge and merger arbitrage fund strategies achieved some of the best returns, according to the Dow Jones Hedge Fund Indexes. In the 52 weeks to January 2, event driven funds registered an increase of 9.1%, and merger arbitrage funds rose 4.2%. By comparison, convertible arbitrage funds saw a 2.4% fall.
Bankers transitioning to hedge funds have historically had a research or trading focus. However, Durham says hedge funds in London are increasingly wary of hiring proprietary traders from investment banks. "Our big hedge fund clients are saying they are no longer interested in prop traders," he says. "The feeling is they are not always able to perform when divorced from the information flow in a bank."
