Yasuhiro Kawakami

Yasuhiro Kawakami has joined the Tokyo office of Algebris Investments as a Managing Director. He has spent the past two years at PIMCO and was previously at Citi and Goldman Sachs. However, he has spent most of his career at IFC – International Finance Corporation as a Senior Financial Officer. Algebris is a global asset management firm with multiple investment strategies founded in 2006.

Geoff Barker

Portfolio manager Geoff Barker in Hong Kong has joined US$17bn fund house CQS following the collapse of City Financial where he previously housed his Counterpoint Asia macro fund. Prior to joining City Financial in 2013, Barker was part of the macro fund team at Ballingal Investment Advisors for eight years. Earlier in his career, he was HSBC’s chief economist in Asia-Pacific and also had stints at Dresdner Kleinwort Benson, Schroders, Baring Securities and Smith New Court Far East. Barker is expected to bring several team members with him to CQS, including Nick Bibby, Neil Scrase, Vishal Mahtani, Chrisy Law, Amanda Chan and Ivan Kan.

Chris Antonelli

Chris Antonelli, who last year left Nomura, has joined investment manager Schonfeld as its new co-head of the Asian business. He finished his ten years at Nomura as Global Head of Prime Finance. Immediately prior to that, he served as Head of Prime Services, Asia-Pacific. He started his career in 1998 at Lehman Brothers where he spent a decade before Nomura took over that business.

The Eurekahedge Asia ex-Japan Hedge Fund Index was up 7.87% year-to-date as of the end of April, supported by the recovering Asian equity markets throughout the first four months of 2019. The Asia ex-Japan mandate has witnessed US$2.4 billion of investor redemptions year-to-date, despite robust performance gains totalling US$7.6 billion over the same period.

Alain Bordoni

Alain Bordoni, a former managing director at PAG, the alternative investment manager, has joined Hong Kong multi-strategy hedge fund manager Nine Masts Capital in a role focused on operations, risk, treasury, systems and analytics. Earlier in his career, he had stints at Goldman Sachs and Barclays.

Hedge fund managers focusing on Asia ex-Japan were up 2.04% in March, with strong returns registered by long/short equities hedge funds in the region. On a year-to-date basis, the Eurekahedge Asia ex-Japan Hedge Fund Index has gained 7.21%, supported by the recovery of Asian equity and bond markets in the first quarter of the year. The underlying Greater China and India mandates were up 12.27% and 6.46% respectively as of March 2019 year-to-date.

Bryan Goh

Bryan Goh has today started a new job as Chief Investment Officer of the Karuna Family Office in Singapore. For the past four years, he has been the CIO of the Asian arm of Swiss private bank Bordier. Earlier he was Head of Alternative Investments at DBS Bank. In his career since graduating from London School of Economics, he has also had stints at Arab Bank, Oaks Family Office and First Avenue Partners.

The Eurekahedge Greater China Long Short Equities Hedge Fund Index was up 8.31% over the first two months of 2019, supported by the underlying region’s equity market rally which resulted from investor optimism over the US-China trade negotiations and the Fed’s dovish stance. The Greater China hedge fund industry’s asset currently stands at US$28.7 billion, marginally up from the US$28.0 billion figure by the end of 2018. Hedge fund managers focusing on the region were hit particularly hard by the aggressive Fed rate hikes and the US-China trade friction in 2018, as indicated by the US$2.3 billion of performance-based losses recorded during the year. Despite that, investor allocations toward the region remained robust, as the industry saw US$1.0 billion of net inflows in 2018.

Ray Ferguson

Scott Treloar’s Singapore-based investment management firm Noviscient has added Ray Ferguson and JP Leschly Neergaard as new partners at the firm. Ferguson is perhaps best known as chairman of Singapore Life and Caber Partners, while Neergaard has had a long international career with Danske Bank.

Kenneth Ho

Hong Kong-based multi-family office Carret Private Capital, led by Kenneth Ho, has opened a Singapore office. The new office is led by Eugene Huang. He has previously worked at Indosuez Wealth Management, Nomura, Barclays and Merrill Lynch. The firm manages more than US$1 billion in assets. Carret Private Capital is an affiliate of Carret Asset Management in New York.