MPC Investors has appointed Steven Robertson and Eng Li Yap as equity analysts to support Ajay Gambhir, who joined the firm in May from JPMorgan Asset Management to launch MPC Samsara, a E
MPC Investors has appointed Steven Robertson and Eng Li Yap as equity analysts to support Ajay Gambhir, who joined the firm in May from JPMorgan Asset Management to launch MPC Samsara, a European long/short equity hedge fund.
Robertson, who has been well known to Gambhir for more than 10 years, joins from Arden where he was a software and services analyst. He was previously an electronics and technology analyst at UBS and Dresdner Kleinwort where he was top-rated in the Reuters survey, having begun his career as an auditor with PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Yap joins from HSBC’s investment banking division where she was a senior analyst in the retail sector from 2006, having joined from KPMG where she qualified as an accountant.
MPC Samsara will launch on September 17 with an initial size of between USD600m and USD900m, and will follow the same strategy as the JPMorgan Europe Dynamic Long Short hedge fund for which Gambhir was the portfolio manager.
Says MPC Investors chief executive Peter Harrison: ‘The launch of Samsara is the next important step in the development of our business, and these appointments reflect our commitment to offer investors market leading funds. We look forward to benefiting from the expertise of Steven and Eng Li and welcome their contribution to Ajay’s team.’
MPC is an independent asset manager founded in 2000 with assets of USD1.7bn. According to the firm, the business is structured to ensure it is fully aligned with investors, with all employees shareholders, and portfolio managers formulaically linked with their performance.
Miles Geldard and Lee Manzi, who joined MPC in the third quarter of 2006, are responsible for managing some USD500m of assets in three funds. Global Convertibles and Strategic Reserve are Ucits III Luxembourg Sicav, while Strategic Opportunities was recently launched as a Cayman-domiciled hedge fund.
Geldard had previously been chief investment officer and head of multi assets at JP Morgan, responsible for USD30bn of assets and managing USD7bn personally, and worked closely with Manzi on a number of funds.
MPC also manages long/short strategies including the MPC Pilgrim Fund and MPC Pilgrim Select Fund. The Pilgrim Fund is an Anglo-European long/short equity fund launched in 2000 with around GBP500m of assets that has delivered a net return of more than 117 per cent since inception. The Pilgrim Select Fund is a European long/short equity fund that leverages the track record of the Pilgrim Fund to target higher returns.
