There’s something in the water. Increasing numbers of senior bankers and traders are stepping out on their own, starting advisory boutiques, hedge funds or private equity firms. The latest example is Kevin Flaherty, the former head of structured product syndicate for Europe, Asia and Australia at Deutsche Bank, who has just launched his own hedge fund.
Flaherty, who has spent the last three years working at London-based hedge fund Scio Capital, has just launched a new fund called Neptune Capital, according to new filings on Companies House. So far, just Flaherty and Sebastian Stoecker, a former director in fixed income credit solutions at Credit Suisse who most recently worked for Scio Capital in investor relations and business development, focused on structured credit are the only employees. Neptune Capital is going against the recent trend of large UK hedge funds moving out of London’s Mayfair, and has set up its offices on Saville Row. It’s yet to receive authorisation from the Financial Conduct Authority.
Flaherty spent 12 years at Deutsche Bank, having joined in 2001 from Barclays where he worked in asset backed securities (ABS) trading and research. He left the bank in 2012 to join Miami-based investment firm Trimast Capital, but returned to London in 2014 to join Scio Capital.
Neptune Capital is the latest new launch from former senior employees of bulge bracket investment banks who have decided to go it alone. David Perez, a former Goldman Sachs managing director who moved to expansionary hedge fund MKP Capital Management, recently launched an alternative lending platform called YAD Capital. Maxime Kahn, the former star SocGen trader who unwound €70bn worth of Jerome Kerviel’s trades in 2008, left the bank in November and unveiled his new hedge fund One Eleven Capital last week.
Senior bankers are also crowding into the boutique space and launching their own advisory firms. Nick Hassall, who was head of consumer investment banking at UBS, has started Sequor Partners Limited, while James Simpson, the former co-head of advisory for EMEA at HSBC, teamed up with Matteo Canonaco, the former head of financial sponsors, sovereign wealth funds and IPC coverage at the bank, to launch a private equity boutique called DuCanon Capital Partners
Contact: pclarke@efinancialcareers.com
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