Aladdin Capital Management has hired John Brewer and Tim Goodale, principals at Fusion Asset Management in London, and will absorb the Fusion Relative Value Credit Fund and rename it the Aladdin Relative Value Credit Fund. The deal is expected to be finalized in November.
George Marshman, co-founder, said Aladdin is looking to expand opportunistically in both the U.S. and Europe. "We are not following any kind of master plan other than when we see opportunities to create or expand on the business in the States and in London and make something bigger and better in the process, we're going to do it," Marshman said. "That was the idea of moving into the loan area [in Europe] and the same for the credit area [in Europe]. If we can continue and succeed in that arena you can expect that [growth] to continue."
Marshman said he anticipates the firm will make about five hires in Europe, for both the loan and credit businesses, in the next 12 months. Aladdin Capital Management (UK) is prepping its first European collateralized loan obligation led by Bear Stearns, which is expected to price in the first quarter of next year. Peter Allan, who joined Aladdin earlier in the year from NIB Capital Bank, will continue to run the loan business (CIN, 3/31). Aladdin is also marketing another hedge fund in the U.S., the Aladdin New Alternatives Fund, which will launch in the next few months with more than $100 million. It will focus on income generation through investments in a broad range of securitized transactions, a market source said. Marshman declined comment about the new fund. As of September, the Stamford, Conn.-based firm has approximately $13 billion of assets under management.
The Fusion Relative Value Credit Fund was seeded with $25 million in 2004 by Arundel-Iveagh, a London-based fund of hedge funds and hedge fund seeding business, but it could not be determined how much the fund has grown beyond that. Arundel will remain an investor in the fund and Aladdin will be putting money into the business over time. Marshman anticipated Brewer and Goodale will continue to work on just this one fund for the foreseeable future.
The new hires will be responsible for running Aladdin's European fund business, with Brewer serving as head of European credit trading and Goodale serving as head of European sales and marketing. Brewer previously worked at Bank of America as the head of European investment-grade credit trading (BW, 5/5/2002) and before that as the co-head of European bonds and credit default swap trading at Goldman Sachs. Goodale worked with Brewer at Goldman providing senior credit coverage for hedge funds and European banks.
Meanwhile, Fusion hedge fund manager Kirill Ilinksi will continue to run that business. The firm has just signed a new deal with a "big institutional partner," Ilinksi explained, but declined to name the partner, saying only that the position is not a controlling stake.
Fusion will be involved in proprietary trading and structured credit. Although Ilinski is not sure when it will begin working in that space, the firm currently has a part-time structurer on staff that will join full time next year. He declined to name him. Ilinski hopes to increase from eight employees to15-20 by the end of next year. Ilinski anticipates the firm will start with two funds, initially.
