Lugano-based alternative investment manager Insch Capital Management has set up a new financial services IT business in Sofia, Bulgaria, with staff previously employed by fund of hedge fun
Lugano-based alternative investment manager Insch Capital Management has set up a new financial services IT business in Sofia, Bulgaria, with staff previously employed by fund of hedge funds manager Forsyth Partners before its acquisition by Crosby Capital Partners in September.
Insch Quotient has been established to develop and offer financial service products to the international financial adviser, family office and institutional marketplace. Product development and marketing will be initially focused on the Middle East, which has enjoyed buoyant recent growth in the financial services industry.
The new products will include web-based administration services, asset allocation and hedge fund and fund of hedge funds research. The new business will also be closely involved in the research, design and testing of trading systems in the financial, currency and commodity markets, where development of fund products is already a focus for Insch.
The eight full-time programmers, developers and analysts have extensive experience in financial services, having worked together for several years in Bulgaria as the professional IT staff of the Forsyth group, providing IT back office and research support services and calculating of IFA trail commissions.
‘We are delighted to have made a formal commitment and entry into financial services IT and see it as an important part of an overall strategy for Insch,’ says chief executive Christopher Cruden.
‘We are particularly delighted to have such a talented and cohesive team who share our total commitment to making Insch Quotient a success. We are all determined and confident that itwill be a leader of research and product innovation.’
Insch Quotient will be locally managed by Lorenzo Conti, an IT professional with extensive experience of the industry as well as of financial services. ‘The opportunity to develop state of the art products is exciting for me and all the team,’ Conti says. ‘The opportunity to work with Insch means we can build a market-led company that is responsive to customer needs.’
New business development will be the responsibility of Martijn Sjoorda, an Insch veteran who has considerable experience in the IT sector, including the establishment of a mobile computing unit for a Dutch software company.
Insch Capital Management describes itself as a crossover between a private investment bank and a professional services firm, and is active in asset management, investment and private equity. It seeks to become a leader in alternative investments by developing strategies and investment opportunities offering superior absolute returns commensurate with an acceptable level of risk, through quantitative research, programme design, systems testing and due diligence.