Five ex-Credit Suisse equity derivatives MDs founded a new hedge fund

Five former senior Credit Suisse equity derivatives professionals have come together to set up a new UK-based hedge fund, Pluris Capital.

The five founders are: Eric Van Laer, Credit Suisse's ex-head of capital development and investor services and structured equity derivatives sales; Anis Akl, a former CS senior equity derivatives trader; Mounir Elarchi, a former managing director, fund-linked products; Cameron Hedger, the ex-co-head of fund-linked products for Credit Suisse’s global solutions business; and Walter Rotondo, former head of European equity derivatives convertibles trading.

Pluris Capital was registered with the UK's Companies House website in December 2017, but isn't yet licensed by the FCA. While Akl and Hedger were appointed as the LLP designated members of the company on December 1 last year, Laer, Elarchi and Rotondo were appointed designated members this February.

Laer spent 14 and a half years at Credit Suisse and previously worked for Commerzbank. His LinkedIn profile suggests he left the firm earlier this month to join Pluris. Elarchi spent 15 years at CS and it's not clear when he left. An LSE graduate Elarchi was a trader at Credit Lyonnais Securities prior to joining CS.

Akl, who led flow and corporate derivative trading for developed and emerging markets at CS, spent fifteen years at the firm. Before joining CS, he was an equity derivatives trader at Societe Generale for two years. He also worked at Commerzbank as a fixed income trader from 1998 to 2000, at about the same time when Laer was there. It's not clear when he left the bank either.

Hedger ran the fund-linked products business at Credit Suisse and left after over a decade when the bank made cuts in December 2016. Rotondo, a long-serving Credit Suisse banker who joined in 2006, left Credit Suisse last year amidst the cuts that followed the arrival of Mike Stewart from UBS as the head of equities at the Swiss bank.

It's not clear which strategy Pluris Capital will follow: the fund simply describes itself as a "private investment company."

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