Man Group ups macro focus with new hires
MAN Group, the FTSE listed money manager, yesterday announced a raft of senior appointments to its hedge fund arm GLG, indicating it could be gearing up to launch new funds this year.
The troubled company, which started life as a commodity firm selling rum to the British Navy, has seen its share price tumble since March after a spate of poor numbers from its quantitative arm AHL.
Incoming Man chief executive Manny Roman, the former head of GLG, yesterday announced he was bringing heavyweight macro strategists on board from Pimco and The World Bank to improve strategy.
Absolute return manager Kumaran Damodaran has been poached from Pimco, the world’s largest bond manager, to become a GLG portfolio manager.
He will work for another recent new hire Sudi Mariappa, also a former Pimco man, who joined in September to build up GLG’s fixed income offering. World Bank economist Brian Pinto, who was at the bank for 30 years, comes over to become senior macro-economist. GLG has also taken over AHL’s Richard Bateson as senior quantitative analyst.
The rush to firm up the macro and fixed income teams could point to a pipeline of new funds in the space from Man.
Damodaran has experience managing fixed income emerging market money and Pinto also specialises in emerging markets and sovereign debt.