FrontPoint Partners is looking to add up to seven fixed-income professionals to its recently established credit team, said Phil Duff, ceo of the Greenwich, Conn.-based investment manager. "We'll be adding credit analysts, quantitative people and a specific credit trader," he said.
The new hires will report to Robert Smalley, formerly director of credit research at the Clinton Group, and Robert Wenzel, credit arbitrage portfolio manager at Clinton, who recently joined FrontPoint as partners. Smalley and Wenzel left Clinton Group earlier this fall (BW, 10/4).
The new team will invest in all aspects of the credit markets by executing long-short, cash/derivative and capital structure arbitrage strategies, noted Duff. He said the group is adding a credit team now "in recognition of the swap market's growing size... [and the fact that] it's moved from being just a hedger's market to becoming deep, broad and liquid enough to be a real investable class."
Duff added the new team is in the process of ramping up assets and has already secured $100 million in commitments. He declined to detail whether the money has already been put to work. FrontPoint has a total of $4 billion under management.