Financial News

Economic News Rising Stars

Financial News Rising Stars

Because of their youth, these young men and women have no preconceived notions of how things “should” be accomplished, and are not constrained by a classic mindset.

Feras Al-Chalabi
Partner, Odey Asset Management
Al-Chalabi joined Odey in 1999 and manages .2bn of long-only funds. This year he has made returns of 11% for Odey’s flagship continental Europe fund, ranking it in the leading 10% of peers more than 1, three and five years. Al-Chalabi has focused on investing in luxury goods, a sector which has aroused fund managers’ interests since of its exposure to high-growth emerging markets. He remains bullish on Europe “as focus turns from the pantomime of the PIGS (Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain) to the boom times in Germany”.

Reza Amiri
Founder, Susa Fund Management
Former Citadel portfolio manager Amiri launched his new fund Susa in March last year and because then it has returned practically 40%.

He began his career as an M&ampA banker in New York prior to joining private equity firm Bain Capital and moving to London to concentrate on European buyouts. In 2003 he joined start-up hedge fund Bailey Coates, a spin-off from Perry Capital, then moved to Citadel in 2005. Amiri collects old stock and bond certificates, which decorate Susa’s Berkeley Street offices.

Asita Anche
Managing director, Goldman Sachs
High-frequency, quant-driven trader Anche was snapped up by Goldman Sachs in August to assist create its fixed-income industry-generating unit. She graduated from the University of Illinois with a masters in computer science in 2009 and her very first job was in the high-frequency trading group at Citadel in the US. Twenty months later she moved to the HFT team in Europe. In 2009, Anche joined Millennium Capital Management, which is renowned for giving traders a high degree of autonomy.

George Andreadis
Head of European liquidity strategy for advanced execution services, Credit Suisse
Former London Stock Exchange trader Andreadis is spearheading Credit Suisse’s dark pool strategy. He works in the advanced execution services group and after 4 years at the firm has became the face of Credit Suisse on market structure initiatives. He narrowly missed out on winning the most promising rising star at this year’s annual Economic News awards for excellence in trading and technology. For the duration of his six years at the LSE, he built and ran the Fix Gateway connectivity service.

Danielle Ballardie
Vice-president, equities electronic trading, Barclays Capital
Ballardie joined BarCap last year to run Liquidity Cross, the bank’s fledgling anonymous trading platform, and has been charged with producing it a marketplace leader in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, in the face of stiff competition. Just before BarCap, Ballardie spent eight years working for the London Stock Exchange on product development for its alternative trading venue Baikal, technologies sales and the exchange’s strategy and preparation for the European Commission’s markets in economic instruments directive.

Julian Barnett
Founder, Ridley Park Capital
Formerly one of Polar Capital’s best-performing managers, Barnett set up on his own last year after seven years at Polar. In the five years to 2008 he clocked an average annual return of 28% for the firm’s 5m Paragon fund. And much more remarkably, he returned 20% in 2008, when the typical hedge fund was down almost the same amount. Ridley Park Capital – the hedge fund firm that Barnett kicked off in June with 0m – has considering that grown to about 0m. Barnett began managing money in UK equities at Close Brothers in 1999.

James Baugh
Director, client relationship management at Turquoise, London Stock Exchange
Baugh was promoted to his current role in February when the LSE purchased multi-lateral trading facility Turquoise. He is spearheading its sales efforts and has already elevated Turquoise’s share of European money equity trading from much less than 3% to nearly 5%, grown its dark book to a leading position in Europe in terms of volume traded and migrated to a new low-latency technologies platform in October. He was previously head of client management for the LSE’s dark pool Baikal.

Mark Beeston
Chief executive, portfolio risk services, Icap
Former Deutsche Bank trader Beeston credits his father’s influence for his “entrepreneurial spirit and drive”. He joined Icap a year ago, charged with expanding its post-trade services division, and got off to a flying begin with the acquisition of TriOptima, a post-trade infrastructure provider for more than-the-counter derivatives, and is investing in collateral management messaging firm AcadiaSoft. He has also been promoted to Icap’s global executive management group. Beeston says his greatest achievement was developing credit default swap affirmation platform T-Zero, which is now portion of IntercontinentalExchange.

Greg Greatest
Managing director, cash trading desk, Morgan Stanley
Very best was widely regarded as one of Lehman Brothers’ top money equities traders, and was part of the team that built Lehman into a leading-five equity franchise from scratch when he started in 1999. He joined Morgan Stanley in July to look following the so-named super sectors, covering technologies, media and telecoms, natural resources and utilities. Industry insiders have picked him out as a future head of cash equities trading, simply because his in-depth information and client relationships give him an edge as an execution adviser.

Stephen Birch
Partner and head of manager research, Hymans Robertson
The pensions market is undergoing dramatic modifications, and Birch is laying the foundations for both himself and his firm to not only embrace that change but thrive on it. Birch has been instrumental in transforming the manager investigation approach at Hymans, and his team now has responsibility for placing up to £10bn of UK pension fund assets per year with investment managers. Colleagues describe him as “a figurehead for external investment manager relationships in the UK institutional industry”.

Jeff Blumberg
Chief executive, Egerton Capital
Soon after a decade at Goldman Sachs Asset Management, where he was chief operating officer overseeing the manager’s external hedge fund investments in Europe and Asia, Blumberg quit this year to join hedge fund pioneer John Armitage’s firm Egerton in June. He picked a high-calibre hedge fund to run – Egerton’s flagship lengthy/short equity hedge fund has returned 16% annualised since it launched in 1994. Harvard-educated Blumberg has represented the US and Canada at international squash and is also a keen photographer.

Nils Bolmstrand
Chief executive, Skandia Investment Group
A Swede who studied in Spain and has worked in European, Asian, South African and Latin American markets brings a genuinely international flavour to Skandia’s investment arm. Bolmstrand replaced Jamie Macleod in the leading job at the UK’s biggest multi-manager operation in September last year. He has been at the organization because it launched in 2007, responsible for item development, distribution and managing relationships with other fund groups, and was previously in charge of Skandia Fonder, the Swedish fund management organization.

Eamon Brabazon
Head of Emea private equity exit company, JP Morgan
Brabazon was named most promising rising star at the Private Equity News advisory services awards last month. Twelve months right after he became head of JP Morgan’s exit business, the bank has the highest deal tally of any bank this year at 23 either completed or in the pipeline, including the acquisition of Gatwick Airport by Global Infrastructure Partners. Brabazon is also a member of JP Morgan’s liability management team. Outside work, he enjoys skiing, biking, boating and visiting his summer home in picturesque Irish coastal town Kinsale with his household.

Charlotte Burkeman
Co-head of prime brokerage, Emea, UBS
Burkeman is a driven saleswoman. Having started her career in Goldman Sachs’ capital introduction team, she joined UBS seven years ago as component of the Swiss bank’s push to break Goldman’s and Morgan Stanley’s stranglehold more than European prime brokerage. In 2006 she moved to the US as UBS’s global head of capital introduction and was promoted to co-head of US prime brokerage sales. In May, she moved back to London into her present role alongside Ashley McLucas.

Liam Camburn
Director, private equity transaction services team, Deloitte
An avid sports fan, Camburn credits his senior school economics teacher for diverting his attention from tennis and rugby to the world of business and finance.
He trained as an accountant at Arthur Andersen and for the past 10 years has provided monetary due diligence for private equity deals. He worked for Andersen, Deloitte and KPMG, then spent a year as an investment manager at mid-market buyout house Rutland Partners ahead of returning to Deloitte in July 2008.
He has worked on some of the greatest buyouts of the year, which includes 3 for US private equity giant KKR – the €1.3bn acquisition of a majority stake in Nordic software program services firm Visma, a €700m investment in aviation firm Grupo Inaer and the £995m acquisition of Pets at House.
In spite of the delicate state of the economy, Camburn says he is an optimist on macro issues, and believes uncertainty leads to opportunity. He follows the mantra of “obtaining the basics correct and keeping points easy, or you finish up creating on weak foundations”.
He still plays rugby each and every week, even though he expects that will change in the new year with the birth of his initial child.

Tavis Cannell
Managing director, special scenarios group, Goldman Sachs
Promoted to managing director last month, Cannell manages the private capital enterprise of Goldman’s particular circumstances group, focused on investing in a range of opportunities across various business sectors, such as performing and non-performing debt, hybrid and junior financing, structured equity, and rescue finance – each debt and equity. Just before joining Goldman in 2005 he worked in Morgan Stanley’s equity capital markets, M&ampA advisory and actual estate private equity organizations and also as director for a logistics company in Kenya.

Maxime Carmignac
Portfolio manager, Carmignac Gestion
The daughter of the founder of €33bn French asset manager Carmignac Gestion, Carmignac this year returned to the firm she is tipped 1 day to lead. She manages the firm’s only hedge fund, the €120m market-neutral fund she helped set up in 2007 before quitting to acquire analyst encounter at Cheyne Hedge Fund in London and Visium Asset Management in New York. She is applying a high-conviction approach at stock, sector and macro level to chase double-digit return targets.

Rose Chamberlayne
Senior associate, Lawrence Graham
Chamberlayne works for some of the world’s richest families on dynastic structures for wealth preservation. She lately advised a high-profile household in the Middle East on a sharia compliant structure and is also focusing on asset protection, especially for wealthy Russian clients. She has been liaising with Bahamian authorities on new legislation soon to come into impact, and is on course to turn into a partner next year. Her very first baby is due in January.

Esther Chan
Portfolio manager, emerging marketplace debt, Aberdeen Asset Management
Singaporean Chan’s childhood ambition was to join the army, and despite the fact that she hasn’t fulfilled it she undoubtedly enjoys gruelling physical challenges. This year she completed the Tough Guy race, an assault course by means of eight miles of mud, underwater tunnels, barbed wire fences, broken glass and fire walks, and has recently completed a 134-metre bungee jump.
Chan applies her competitive nature to her work. She joined Aberdeen’s Singapore office in 2005, helping to manage much more than bn of challenging currency assets in Asian bonds. She joined the emerging marketplace desk in London in 2007 and works on a team managing nearly bn of emerging market bonds, specialising in Latin America and Asia corporate bonds. In the past 12 months she has driven the launch of a dedicated emerging markets corporate bond fund. Ahead of Aberdeen, Chan worked for John Moore Associates as a corporate finance analyst, advising businesses undergoing debt restructuring in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Tony Chedraoui
Founder, Tyrus Capital
Chedraoui’s hedge fund firm Tyrus Capital was 1 of the biggest launches of last year, rapidly raising .8bn and closing to new cash. He cut his teeth at Lehman Brothers, initially on the sellside and then running a proprietary trading method, prior to moving to Deephaven Capital, exactly where he was in charge of its European event-driven enterprise. Chedraoui studied at the American University in Beirut just before winning a scholarship to do a masters degree at the elite Hautes Études Commerciales in Paris.

Are You Getting Used to The Financial Crisis?

I’m amazed every morning when I get up and read about how BP hasn’t fixed the oil leak in the gulf and how oil is still rushing into the ocean. Oil has spilled into the water at the rate of thousands of barrels per day since April 20, 2010—over two months. Currently there’s no fix in sight as top engineers and scientists work round the clock to come up with a solution.

The devastation caused by the oil spill is tremendous—both to the environment and the economy. The cost of the spill has exceeded billion, and the pictures of oil-marred beaches and oil-covered birds and animals are incredibly sad.

Yet, I’d be willing to bet that many people have begun to forget about the oil spill. Life gets busy. Breaking news becomes old news. And in the process you begin to accept things as status quo. Certainly the people who live in the gulf—whose lives and businesses have been ruined by this spill—think about the oil disaster continually. But the overwhelming majority of Americans probably have little-to-no thought about the spill during their normal, daily routine. They’ve become used to the crisis.

The people in Texas probably did the same—until yesterday. Yesterday, oil landed on their shores. Now the oil spill is their disaster too. They’re part of the crisis.

Stay Alert

If you’re not careful, the global financial crisis can sneak up on you the same way the oil disaster did for Texas. It’s easy to get caught up in the day-to-day struggles of life and lose sight of the large economic crisis looming over each one of us. Even worse, sometimes it’s easier to just ignore it and hope that it doesn’t affect you.

Unfortunately, ignorance isn’t bliss. It’s dangerous.

As I wrote last week, the signs that the economy is crashing are all around us. The government and the ultra rich don’t want you to wake up to this fact. They want you living in blissful ignorance, spending more money, and accumulating more bad debt. They want to profit off your blissful ignorance. That’s why they tell you that the job market is getting better in headline catching ways. And why this week’s news that employment isn’t better, but actually getting worse, comes as a shock to many.

Those jobs Obama was celebrating in June? All government census jobs—and now all gone. The US Government laid off 225,000 people in June. The private sector added only 83,000 jobs. Despite this the unemployment rate dropped from 9.7% to 9.5%. Why? Not because of a better job market but because of the growing number of people who have been unemployed for so long that they are no longer counted as part of the labor force.

Our leaders are betting you won’t connect the dots. They’re hoping you only read the headlines. They’re hoping you get used to the crisis.

Don’t let your guard down. Stay alert and vigilant. Continue your financial education and look for the opportunities this crisis will bring. While others are living in blissful ignorance until the crisis takes them out, you can begin preparing now to not only survive but thrive when the economic collapse hits in full force.

Start Diversifying

The old rules of money tell you to invest for the long term in a well-diversified portfolio of stocks, bonds, and mutual funds. The problem with that logic is that it’s not really diversification. It’s just a diverse range of products in one category—paper assets. If paper assets go down, like they are now, you go down too.

True diversification involves all four of the major asset classes: Business, Real Estate, Paper Assets, and Commodities.

Personally, I’m not worried about this crisis. I’m excited. It’s the biggest wealth transfer in history. For me, it’s a great time to buy investment real estate: Prices are low, debt is available at some of the lowest rates in history, and as you know I love cash flow.

I’m also investing in my business. I understand that there’s no time in history where financial education is as important as now. I built my company for such a time as this—to help people just like you to come out on top.

Though not my preferred investment vehicle, I’ve also bulked up on some paper assets like shares in gold and silver mining companies.

And I’ve increased my holding of both gold and silver. (For those commenting last week on my COR article on the price of gold going down, the point was not that it was a bad thing but a good thing. In the long term I’m still bullish on gold. But in the short term I plan to take advantage of the dip to buy even more gold at lower prices.)

By being truly diversified, I’m much more secure than the average person. But to invest this way you must have a high financial IQ. I encourage you to continue to read books, take seminars, invest in coaching and mentoring, and to surround yourself with like-minded people.

By staying alert and continually aware of the coming crisis, you’ll prosper while others perish.

Written by zoomer