People moves

Appointments within the hedge fund and related services industry.

Specialist fund administrator Augentius Fund Administration has appointed Glyn Thomas as managing director of its Guernsey office. The move is an internal promotion. He joined the business seven years ago from PricewaterhouseCoopers as a senior accountant.

Citi has appointed Sanjiv Sawhney as global head of fund services for its securities and fund services business. He joins from JP Morgan where he headed fund services in Europe and was a managing director and board member of JP Morgan Bank Luxembourg. Sawhney will oversee Citi’s hedge fund, private equity and mutual fund administration businesses in investor services. He reports to Neeraj Sahai, global head of securities and fund services, and will be based in New York.

Brown Brothers Harriman & Co (BBH) has appointed two new partners, Timothy Hartch and Seán Páircéir. Hartch joined BBH in 1996 as part of the corporate finance department, providing merger and acquisition advisory services to BBH clients and evaluating, negotiating, and monitoring investments for private equity and mezzanine funds. Páircéir joined BBH in 2000 as a managing director, resident in Dublin. He has spent his entire 20 year career in the global investment funds industry.
Separately, BBH also announced the appointment of Shawn McNinch as senior vice president, to global exchange traded funds (ETF) product and sales head. Previously, McNinch worked at Barclays Global Investors (BGI) where he was a senior principal within the iShares (ETFs) product strategy group BBH, with expertise in domestic and international equity, fixed income, leveraged/inverse and commodity ETFs, is the third largest ETF custodian in the US.

Cowen Group has appointed David Istock as a senior professional focused on technology sector mergers and acquisitions. Istock joins from UBS, where he also focused on mergers and acquisitions for technology companies. He will be based in San Francisco. Cowen Group is a diversified financial services company providing alternative investment management, investment banking, research and sales and trading services through its business units, Ramius and Cowen and Company.
In a separate move, Cowen has promoted Peter Reikes, head of health care investment banking since 1999, to vice chairman. Declan Quirke, who joined Cowen in 2001 and most recently was a managing director and head of life sciences, has been promoted to head of health care investment banking. Reikes and Quirke will be based in New York.

Tom Humphrey has joined GoldenTree as a partner and member of the executive committee. He will work closely with partners and executive committee members Frank Jordan and Leon Wagner on issues related to company strategy, client franchise development and the continued expansion of GoldenTree. Humphrey will report to GoldenTree’s president, Robert Matza. He joins following a 24-year career at Lehman Brothers/Barclays Capital where he played a leading role in the integration of the two firms following Barclays’ acquisition of Lehman’s North American operations in 2008.

Concerto Asset Management has appointed Jim Skufca as head of risk management and distressed portfolio manager based in the Charlotte office. Previously he was head of capital and trading oversight for the fixed income division of Wells Fargo. Susan Moran has also joined as managing director on the business development team. She was previously responsible for distributing alternative investments and structured credit products in North America and Europe for Wachovia. Concerto Asset Management is a multi-strategy asset manager with a focus on the US corporate credit asset class.

BlueMountain Capital Management has expanded its investor relations and marketing team with the appointment of Jennifer Strickland as managing director. In addition Josh Drazen has been promoted to managing director of investor relations and strategy. BlueMountain is a global asset manager specialising in strategies in the global credit markets and equity derivatives market.
Prior to joining Strickland was director of investor relations at HBK Capital Management for nine years where she developed close relationships with leading institutional investors including pensions, endowments and consultants. Drazen has been with BlueMountain for three years, previously serving as vice president of business management and strategy. He will now be responsible for managing existing investor relationships, co-ordinating client communications, refining the investor relations infrastructure and working on marketing strategy. BlueMountain Capital Management is an asset manager that invests in the global credit markets and equity derivatives markets. If manages approximately $4 billion in hedge fund assets and three collateralised debt obligations (CDOs) with total AUM of approximately $1.5 billion.

New York-based Mudrick Capital Management, an alternative investment company focusing on distressed investing, has appointed Philipp Levy as head of marketing and investor relations, a newly created position. He will be responsible for all aspects of marketing, sales and investor relations continuing the work he has done as a consultant since the company’s inception. He reports to Mudrick Capital CEO, Jason Mudrick. Prior to joining Levy was the founder and managing partner at EastView Advisors, a New York based hedge fund consulting and marketing company that represented Mudrick Capital exclusively.

Specialist alternative asset manager Oakley Alternative Investment Management has appointed Teun Johnston as a portfolio manager. Johnston was previously co-head of investments at Amundi AI (formerly known as Credit Agricole Asset Management Alternative Investments), one of the world’s largest fund of hedge fund managers. Johnston will work with Nick Hannan, chief investment officer, and Christopher Parkinson, portfolio manager. Oakley Alternative Investment Management oversees the company’s flagship fund of hedge funds, Oakley Absolute Return which at March 1 had assets under management of $250 million.

Northern Trust’s board of directors has elected to promote seven individuals to executive vice president of Northern Trust Company: Arthur Fogel, managing director, corporate banking group, corporate and institutional services; Mark Gossett, head of risk management, Northern Trust Global Investments (NTGI); Mark Van Grinsven, head of credit policy, corporate risk management; Darrell Jackson, co-president, personal financial services, Illinois; Peter Magrini, head of technology development. operations and technology; Alan Robertson, global head of sales and services, NTGI; and Michael Vardas, head of capital markets group, NTGI.

GlobeOp Financial Services has appointed Jan Zlotnick to the newly-created position of chief marketing officer. Zlotnick reports to CEO Hans Hufschmid and will be based in New York. He is also a member of GlobeOp's operating committee. Zlotnick brings over 20 years of brand marketing and creative agency experience to GlobeOp.

Andy Lando has returned to Merlin Securities, a mid-tier prime brokerage services provider, as a senior partner. Lando, who was one of the company’s founders in 2004, will head Merlin’s newly formed securities lending group. Lando and his team will be based in New York. Lando was formerly a managing director and global head of securities lending for Banc of America Securities

The Board of LCH.Clearnet Group has appointed Jacques Aigrain as non-executive chairman. Aigrain will replace Chris Tupker, who has been chairman since July 2006 and who announced his intention to step down in September 2009. Aigrain was CEO of Swiss Re from 2006-09, a company which he joined in 2001 as head of financial services, New York. LCH.Clearnet is an independent clearing house group serving major international exchanges and platforms as well as a range of OTC markets

Anthony Lombardi has joined HedgeMark International, a provider of hedge fund managed account solutions, as head of managed account operations, prime brokerage and trading relationships. He brings over a decade of experience in managed accounts operations and risk management. Prior to joining he was chief operating officer at Switzerland-based Rose & Sky Investments.

HSBC has appointed John Crompton as global head of equity capital markets. Starting in April, Crompton will be based in London and will report to Kevin Adeson, head of global capital financing.

Old Broad Street Research (OBSR), an independent investment funds research and consultancy company, has appointed Ruli Viljoen as head of investment research and has Emma O'Neill to the investment research team. Viljoen was previously a portfolio manager at TriAlpha Investment Advisors. O'Neill previously worked for AIB Investment Managers as a multi-manager fund analyst and will be an investment research analyst at OBSR.