State Street Global Advisors, the USD1.4 trillion asset manager, is planning to add credit derivatives to its European hedge funds. Yacine Bechikh, a former director of a Parisian hedge fund, has been hired to lead the effort.
Chris Woods, director of hedge fund strategies in London, said the effort is a push to expand its European hedge fund business. SSgA has over USD2 billion in hedge funds worldwide, with the London-based group managing a long/short European equity market neutral strategy. Details of how synthetic credit instruments will be used, or if a new fund will be developed, have not been finalized, Woods noted.
Bechikh joined last month as senior hedge fund manager responsible for developing volatility and correlation arbitrage strategies, said Sally Todd, spokeswoman for SSgA in London. She declined to give exact details of what this will involve.
Contacted on his cell phone, Bechikh said his first task is working on a credit derivatives business plan. Bechikh was a founding director of a hedge fund named Sigma, which operated under a parent company he declined to name. It managed equity and credit arbitrage strategies and closed in May this year. Previous to this he was head of equity derivatives research at BNP Paribas in London.
