Peter Barcia, a former director of portfolio solutions at Citi Private Bank, has joined the New York office of Abbot Downing as managing director and senior portfolio manager.   Abbot Downing, with USD34bn in client assets and a 40-year history serving ultra-high-net-worth clients, is part of Wells Fargo’s wealth, brokerage and retirement group.   Barcia joined Citi in 2010, where he spearheaded the launch of a customised hedge fund solution business. In addition to constructing and managing customised portfolios, he travelled extensively through the US, Europe and the Middle East to promote the business and raise assets.   Before joining

Lyxor Asset Management has appointed Frank Frecentese as global head of hedge fund research.   The appointment continues Lyxor’s growth in the North American market.   Frecentese’s appointment will bolster Lyxor’s existing dedicated portfolios team which offers advisory services and portfolio solutions to institutional investors. Lyxor’s multi-billion dollar advisory business services institutional investors across Europe, MENA, Asia and North America.   Frecentese (pictured) succeeds Dennis Heskel, who will retire in October 2013, and will report directly to Lionel Erdely and Nicolas Gaussel, chief investment officers of Lyxor.    Frecentese joined Lyxor from Citi Private Bank earlier this year, where he

Moscow Exchange has made a number of senior hires to its management team to strengthen key operations and increase the exchange’s international competitiveness.   Luis Vicente has been appointed managing director of risk and clearing. Upon receiving the pertinent clearance from the Central Bank of Russia, Vicente will take up the post of deputy risk officer of the National Clearing Centre, which is part of Moscow Exchange, where he will be responsible for the implementation and improvement of risk-management systems.   Vicente has 16 years’ risk-management experience. He worked for 12 years in central counterparty risk management at Brazil’s BM&FBOVESPA, a multi-market,

Wake2o has appointed Jean-Michel Montandon as a vice president in the firm’s global hedge fund distribution business, which comprises Wake2o hedge fund secondaries illiquids, hedge fund secondaries continuing classes, legal claims and the Wake-X intermediation platform.   Montandon joins Wake2o from Gottex Brokers Alternative in Lausanne where he spent three years as a broker on the secondary market for hedge funds and private equity shares. Prior to that Montandon worked with Hegebay Trading Corp (Geneva) where he was a sales manager and a member of the directorship of the commercial department, responsible for the research, development and follow-up of institutional

AllenbridgeEpic Investment Advisers has appointed Benedicte Rabier as a sector specialist.   Rabier has over 12 years’ experience within the hedge fund industry and more generally on alternative investments. She has worked primarily on the equity derivatives desks of investments banks, such as Societe Generale Asset Management (Paris), Natixis (New York), Lehman Brothers (New York) and Barclays (New York and London). She ran fund derivatives trading books and held funds positions as collateral under the structured products she traded. Her clients were mainly funds of hedge funds and family offices.   During her career, Rabier covered hedge funds and mutual

Bob Devine has joined regulatory incubator Sturgeon Ventures as a portfolio manager.   London-based Sturgeon’s client list includes a number of hedge, venture capital and private equity fund management companies.   Devine has more than 40 years’ experience in fixed income markets. He was previously a fixed interest asset manager and macro-economic strategist with EPIC Asset Management and Ashcourt Rowan Asset Management. He is a former European director of capital markets with Nat West Markets and BZW (now Barclays Capital), and a former head of business development at Oxford Economics.   Devine started his career on the London Stock Exchange

Investcorp’s US-based hedge fund business has appointed Elena Ranguelova as head of credit and equity strategies.   In this newly created role, Ranguelova (pictured) will be responsible for supporting the growth of both investments in emerging managers and the Single Manager Platform, the firm’s hedge fund seeding business.   Before joining Investcorp, Ranguelova served as global head of credit and event driven strategy research at Pioneer Investments, where she also served as a member of the board of directors for Pioneer Alternative Investments New York. Earlier, she ran Goldman Sachs’ fundamental strategies team in New York. In this role, she

Dawn Howe has joined law firm Walkers as a partner in the global investment funds group.   Howe, an offshore investment funds specialist, was previously a partner at Maples and Calder in its Cayman Islands and London offices.   Howe advises upon the structuring, launch and ongoing transactions for both hedge funds and private equity funds and has advised many leading industry names. She has acknowledged expertise on cross-jurisdictional and regulatory issues affecting Cayman Islands investment funds, including issues relating to the application of AIFMD and FATCA.   Howe will initially be based in Walkers’ London office, led by managing