When star emerging-markets manager Greg Coffey stunned his bosses at GLG Partners last spring with news that he would be leaving at the end of October, they didn’t waste time bemoaning their loss. Instead, they used some of the $250 million or so of his compensation that had not yet vested to help recruit new portfolio managers to carry out their bold expansion plans, as well as to replace Coffey. Here are snapshots of the ten senior investment professionals hired in 2008.
Driss Ben-Brahim, 44, joined GLG last summer to develop a special situations platform. The Moroccan-born Ben-Brahim, who speaks fluent French, English and German in addition to his native Arabic, is also launching a global macro fund and a distressed-debt fund. Previously, he ran the proprietary trading desk at Goldman Sachs International in London. Ben-Brahim and GLG co-CEO Emmanuel Roman go way back: Roman helped hire him in 1994 from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development to work in fixed income and structured products at Goldman.
Jamil Baz, 49, was recruited from Pacific Investment Management Co. in London to be chief investment strategist at GLG and work on global asset allocation. The longtime fixed-income expert — who has held senior investment positions at Goldman, Deutsche Bank, Lehman Brothers and the World Bank — is also helping Ben-Brahim with the global macro fund. Baz, who has a Ph.D. in finance from Harvard University, teaches financial economics at the University of Oxford.
Karim Abdel-Motaal, 38, and Bart Turtelboom, 42, joined GLG in October to replace Coffey as co-managers of the firm’s Emerging Markets Fund, Emerging Currency and Fixed Income Fund and Emerging Equity Fund. The duo previously ran emerging-markets sales and trading at Morgan Stanley in London. Before he moved to Morgan Stanley in 2002, Abdel-Motaal managed an emerging-markets trading book for Tudor Capital UK in Epsom, Surrey. Turtelboom was an emerging-markets portfolio manager at Vega Asset Management in Madrid before joining Morgan Stanley in 2004.
Warren Touwen, 36, arrived at GLG in July from Merrill Lynch & Co. as a portfolio manager to work with Esprit Fund co-managers Peter Harnett and Simon Savage. The Esprit Fund, launched in September 2006, uses an “alpha
capture” system to create a
market-neutral portfolio based on analyst recommendations from about 50 investment banks. Touwen, who developed the first fully automated alpha capture model at Merrill, will also work on expanding GLG’s global alpha capture capabilities.
Galia Velimukhametova, 45, was brought in last summer by GLG as a portfolio manager to work with Steven Roth on the Credit Fund and Market Neutral Fund. A distressed-debt expert, she previously launched the London office of New York–based King Street Capital and was a member of that firm’s European investment committee. Before joining King Street in 2005, Velimukhametova spent nearly seven years at JPMorgan Europe in London, where among other things she did capital structure arbitrage.
Anthony Burton, 37, has been co-managing global technology investments with Philip Pearson since joining GLG in September. Previously, he ran a global long-short equity fund at Merrill, focusing on the technology, media and telecommunications sectors.
Andrew Knott, 28, also joined GLG from Merrill Lynch in September. The longtime equity research analyst has been charged with creating a new global energy fund, while also helping to manage energy investments across the firm’s existing funds. At Merrill, Knott ran the European Oil & Gas Exploration and Production equity research team.
Daniel Geber, 49, was hired by GLG a year ago as a portfolio manager in its New York office to boost the firm’s small- and midcap investment expertise. Geber, who once worked as an analyst at hedge fund firm Omega Advisors, had been managing a top-ranked international small-cap fund for Epoch Investment Partners, a New York–based, largely long-only firm.
Fabrice Bay, 40, moved to London from Frankfurt last summer when GLG hired him to lead its Consumer Fund team and co-manage the Capital Appreciation Fund alongside Ben Funnel. In his last job at DWS/Deutsche Asset Management, Bay managed €2 billion ($3 billion) in European equities mutual funds, as well as launched 130/30 products for institutional clients.
