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| Best Global hedge fund manager: Bluecrest Capital | |
| Also nominated: Renaissance Technologies and Brevan Howard Asset Management |
Since two senior proprietary traders from JPMorgan – Michael Platt and Bill Reeves – set up BlueCrest Capital in 2000, its three flagship funds have never had a down year. In the light of tanking stock markets, credit crunches, collateral calls and forced redemptions, such an achievement seems inconceivable.
The firm, which until recently was headquartered in London, has about $20 billion in assets under management, making it the third-largest hedge fund manager in Europe, and has nine funds in total. Roughly half of its funds are in discretionary fixed-income trading strategies and the other half in systematic trading funds.
Andrew Dodd, chief financial officer at BlueCrest Capital, says the past 12 months in particular have offered an extremely attractive environment for its discretionary trading strategies. BlueCrest Capital International is the firm’s discretionary flagship fund, with which it launched the firm, and has about $6.5 billion in assets. Since its inception it has annualized almost 15% in returns, and in 2009 made a staggering 45%.