Moore Capital hires senior portfolio manager from J.P. Morgan's Chief Investment Office

A senior member of J.P. Morgan’s Chief Investment Office has left after eight years at the firm to join hedge fund Moore Capital.

Panagiotis Vlachopoulos, who was a senior portfolio manager at J.P. Morgan’s Chief Investment Office, has just joined Moore as a portfolio manager, according to the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority.

Vlachopoulos is the latest in a line of J.P. Morgan CIO employees to make the switch into a hedge fund since the London Whale incident in 2012 that racked up a $6.2bn loss for the bank. Most notably, its chief investment officer for North America, Irene Tse – who worked 80-hour weeks and is also a concert pianist – started her own hedge fund in 2012.

Vlachopoulos is an investment banking veteran, having started his career on the bond desk at Salomon Brothers in 1994. He was a managing director at Merrill Lynch in New York until 2003 when he switched to EFG Bank as treasurer. He joined J.P. Morgan in 2007 after stints as a portfolio manager at both Trident Global Investments and Old Lane.

Moore Capital had been on something of an expansion in 2014 and the first half of 2015. The number of partners more than doubled from 7 to 16, according to its most recent accounts to December 2014. More recently, however, headcount in the UK has been shrinking – it now has 82 people, compared to 89 in July 2015.

Vlachopoulos has an Msc in Environmental Engineering from Stanford University and is also a trustee for Hellenic Hope – a charity that provides support to vulnerable children in Greece.

Photo: Merry go round by Hannah Bluedawn licensed by CC BY-NC-ND 2.0