By some guy called Sam Jones. The FT’s hedge fund correspondent apparently!
Pay for staff at BlueCrest, one of Europe’s largest hedge funds, close to doubled in 2008 on the back of a successful year for most of the company’s funds.
Wages and salaries rose from £17.5m in 2007 to £32m last year at the London-based hedge fund manager, while the number of employees rose only marginally to 260, up from 224 the year previously, accounts filed at companies house yesterday showed.
BlueCrest, founded in 2000 by former Morgan Stanley prop desk traders Michael Platt and William Reeves, fared well in a year when most other hedge funds suffered badly. Revenue earned by the management company – based on a 2 per cent management fee and 20 per cent performance fee on funds – was up 39 per cent in 2008, at $402m.
company’s flagship managed futures fund, BlueTrend, managed by Leda Braga, was up 43.4 per cent last year, according to people familiar with the situation, making it one of Europe’s best performing funds.
So-called managed futures funds like BlueTrend performed well in 2008 because of strong market trends, such as the commodity bubble, in the first half of the year. These funds use computer models to identify patterns in markets and trade in highly-liquid futures contracts to profit on them.
BlueCrest also avoided being hit as hard by the industry-wide redemptions crisis in the fourth quarter of last year as many of its peers.
Total assets under management at the company, which at their peak were estimated at around $16bn, are currently understood to be around $12bn. BlueCrest was, however, forced to shut one of its funds earlier this year, teh £1.1bn BlueCrest Strategic fund, after hefty losses linked to its emerging markets holdings.
Performance for BlueTrend has been lacklustre so far this year. The fund is currently down around 5.5 per cent, and including redemptions has seen assets fall from around $8.6bn to $7bn.
The fund manager is neverthless in a better position than many of its competitors. Its funds are already seeing inflows as investors anticipate improved returns from CTA strategies in 2010.
In addition to which, the company’s other, arbitrage funds, are set to benefit heavily from market dislocations and the pullback of many competitors.
BlueCrest has also been mentioned as a prospective acquirer of other funds amid widespread anticipation of consolidation in the hedge fund industry.
Roger Jenkins, the former Barclays’ dealmaker, was at one point believed to be considering a deal with BlueCrest that would see the fund acquiring a rival.