Hugh Dumas, the original marketing director for the alternatives business of Man Investments, has announced plans to move back into the hedge fund sector after recently leaving Franklin Te
Hugh Dumas, the original marketing director for the alternatives business of Man Investments, has announced plans to move back into the hedge fund sector after recently leaving Franklin Templeton.
With other colleagues, Dumas launched the managed futures business at ED&F Man in 1984 with the Mint Funds. Opening offices in Bahrain in the same year he organised the marketing and sales structure for the early Man products. In 1986 he left to pursue further opportunities in the Middle East.
In 1998 Dumas joined Fiduciary Trust, now part of Franklin Templeton, focusing on the sale of fixed income and equity products to Middle East investors and became group marketing director for the Middle East. In his 12 years at Franklin Templeton he was responsible for sales approaching USD12bn in a range of investment products, although not hedge funds.
‘It’s time to take up an old challenge and get back into the alternatives business,’ says Dumas. ‘It’s a truism to say that since the early 1980s, alternative investment has become mainstream. But mainstream or not, investment products still require marketing and I have a series of long-established contacts around the world but particularly in the Middle East, who will still, even in these difficult times, respond positively to the right product’.
Having only left Franklin Templeton on 27 February, Dumas refused to be drawn on the hedge fund group with which he is in discussions.