Best Overall Group: Shortlisted

BlueCrest was founded in 2000 by Michael Platt and William Reeves, both previously managing directors and senior proprietary traders at JP Morgan. Their vision was to create a trading infrastructure of investment bank quality, building trading teams and developing new strategies, around the firm as a specialist model.

Log on to the BlueCrest website and the first thing you read is the following: "Consistent across all of the BlueCrest Funds is the integrity of our teams and our firm commitment to combine technology, diligence and innovation; to produce the most efficient risk-taking possible," says the company's website. This may not be a mission statement but a statement of principle that underlies the philosophy of the group.

Much of the culture of the group has been generated from the ethos of using technology and innovation to explore new ideas and areas.

This has led the company to expand over time from discretionary hedge fund management into systematic trading as well as into long-only products with the setting up of Alignment Investors in 2008. This at of the company focuses on lower risk investment strategies for institutional investors. "We have been taking the steps from being a pure hedge fund manager to a more complete asset manager," explains Simon Dannatt, principal with the company.

The specialist model lies at the core of BlueCrest and has helped it build teams across numerous disciplines using proprietary analytical technology as well as a diversified research team. "This allows the running of broader overall portfolios with significantly less concentrated risk and for the portfolio managers to focus on smaller, more esoteric anomalies that are often overlooked," says Dannatt.

"The combination of our specialist model with the breadth and depth of our research, is what encourages our teams to look for new ideas and drives our product innovation," he adds.

The BlueCrest systematic research team, for example, combines research, model development, implementation and execution functions. It includes a 41-strong quantitative research and development team and a 51-strong systematic trading group.

"Technology is fundamental to our success," explains Dannatt. "It is developed almost entirely in-house and is state-of-the-art from the trading systems delivering market data at speed, in quantity and on a reliable basis to the traders, through to the risk management systems. Having that in-house capability gives greater flexibility and makes us much more dynamic as a business," he adds.

That success is perhaps no more evident than in the BlueCrest Capital International, the company's flagship fund. This is run by Platt, chief executive officer and head of trading. Since the fund's launch in 2000, the same year the company was established, it has produced annualised returns for investors of 33.64%.

Another distinguishing feature of the company is its partnership culture. Ownership of the company is spread among some 60 principals. This structure, the group believes, engenders a longer-term view which is key to a successful implementation of company-wide risk control.

"Having a stake in the business aligns the interests of the principals with the development of the firm and so with our investors. It is a culture that breeds entrepreneurship and the seeking of new opportunities," adds Dannatt.

The principals of BlueCrest hold a 75% shae of the company with the remaining 25% owned by Man Group Holdings, part of the Man Group.