Six new London hedge funds where bankers and traders can find jobs

Large international players are scaling back, but there's a slow gravitation of investment bankers either going it alone or moving to boutique operations and hedge funds.

In the last two months these six hedge funds have been given the thumbs up from the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). Some are still building their teams.

1. Decura Investment Management

Decura Investment Management is the brain-child of former Goldman Sachs head of equities strategies, Jay Dweck, who has been quietly recruiting alumni from the bank. It’s a technology-led hedge fund platform that offers investors access to a pool of managers.

In the past few months, according to company filings and FSA registrations, it’s hired Chul Chung, who joined UBS as co-general counsel after 16 years at Goldman, Vishal Gupta, a former trader at Goldman, Rajesh Amin, another trader at the bank and Cliodhna Murphy, who worked in product development at Goldman Sachs Administration Services. Other recent recruits include Dina Madan, the former deputy head of compliance at Brevan Howard, who will head up compliance, Gianpaolo Schisano, the head of investment analysis at PAM Global Investment and Bin Ren, who previously worked in Barclays’ quantitative investment strategy trading team.

2. Makuria Investment Management

Makuria, a distressed debt-focused hedge fund, be a small, new kid on the block, but the career history of its founder, Mans Larsson, is likely to attract some attention. Larsson was the head of the London office of Canyon Capital Advisors, one of the world’s largest hedge funds, and his new venture is aimed at benefiting from Europe’s debt crisis.

So far, Matthew Johnson has joined as COO and partner from SFM UK Management, Andy Saxton as operations manager, Jan Bruennler comes from Och-Ziff Capital Management as a partner in its investment team and Lorenz Manthey, a former analyst in the capital markets division of Ares Management also joined Makuria as partner in April.

3. Bremner Capital

Atticus Capital is the famously activist hedge fund that suffered steep losses after the 2008 financial crisis, closed two of its three funds and returned $3bn to investors. One of the key figures in the firm, Dr Christopher Bremner, is making a return to the hedge fund sector with Bremner Capital, which received approval from the FCA to start trading in April.

Tancredi Marchiolo has joined from EIM Group in a compliance role, while Efithymia Tsotsani has been recruited from Sanford C. Berstein, where she was an investment analyst focusing on European telecoms research.

4. Metronome Capital

Sharif el Khazen, a former Lehman Brothers and Nomura banker, is going it alone with his new fund Metronome Capital, which received FCA approval last month. Ember Capital, an alternatives firm formed by fomer heads of Nomura’s funds of funds division, is providing the middle office and infrastructure support, according to HFM Week. Santiago Corral, a managing partner at Ember, and Muhannad Obeidat, a former managing partner at Nomura Investment Adviser, have also joined Metronome, according to FCA filings.

5. Ronit Capital

There’s a distinct buzz around Ronit Capital, the new emerging markets focused hedge fund set up by ex-Eton Park Capital Management partner Edward Misrahi. HFM Week broke the news of its launch in December, and Financial News has since suggested that it will have $300m in assets and 12 staff in time to kick off in the second quarter including Luis Arenzana, who relocated from Madrid-based Shelter Island Capital Management to London for a founding partner role.

It’s also hired Matthew Turner as COO, who joined from Edoma Partners – the hedge fund started by former Goldman Sachs prop trader Pierre-Henri Flamand that was forced to shut up shop in November. Andrew Whiting is the new head of operations, again from Edoma Partners, while ex-Eton Park trader Matthew Fletcher has joined as a trader. This suggests there’s still more hiring to be done.

6. Silvaris Capital Management

Silvaris Capital Management was unveiled last year by Eric Halet, the former chief investment officer of Algebris Investments, a specialist financials hedge fund affiliated to the Children’s Investment Fund Management (TCI).  He’s chief investment officer at the new equity long-short fund, which is being headed up by Louis-David Magnien, who was a director at Credit Suisse until August. Antoine Dupuy d’Angeac, a former managing director at Deutsche Bank, has also signed up to Silveris as a partner.

Related articles:

Hedge funds get tough over bonuses

Ex-GLG stars poach Man Group colleagues ahead of new fund launch

Women in hedge funds need to shout about their success