People
Laxfield Capital, the debt origination, execution and loan management business, has appointed Daniel Smith as head of origination.
Smith joins from Eurohypo, where he was a managing director, originating and structuring a number of high profile transactions and more recently heading up its UK restructuring unit.
Laxfield Capital, founded in 2008, is a property debt origination and loan management business owned by Adam Slater and Emma Huepfl.
Laxfield Capital has origination mandates from a range of different lenders with different lending criteria. These include Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, Münchener Hypothekenbank eG and, most recently, Cornerstone Real Estate Advisors.
Institutional asset manager Pyramis Global Advisors has expanded its global distribution leadership team with three senior appointments.
Maureen Fitzgerald has been hired as head of North American institutional distribution, a newly created position. She will report to Michael A Jones, president and chairman of Pyramis.
Colin Fitzgerald has been hired as head of international institutional distribution, a newly created position. He will report to Jones.
Michael Barnett will assume the role of head of Canadian institutional sales and service. Barnett was previously executive vice president of institutional sales for Pyramis. He will dual report to Robert Strickland, president of Fidelity
AQR Capital Management, an independent alternative investment management firm with USD54.5bn under management, has established a London office.
Based in Greenwich, Connecticut, AQR has a systematic and disciplined approach to asset allocation, portfolio construction and risk control. Its offerings range from traditional benchmark-oriented long-only strategies to absolute return alternative strategies.
David Kabiller (pictured), co-founding partner and head of client strategies at AQR, says: “Establishing a London base brings us in closer communication with our growing client base in Europe and globally, and underlines our continued commitment to providing UK and European institutional investors with superior research and portfolio solutions.
“We
KPMG, the audit, tax and advisory firm, is continuing its investment in its alternative investment funds practice by bringing on board several new partners and managing directors.
“KPMG is committed to becoming the market leader in serving the alternative investments industry and our latest additions to the team demonstrate our goal to have the broadest set of skills and in-depth knowledge of the most important regulatory and business issues facing the industry,” says Al Fichera, national partner in charge, alternative investments – audit.
The new hires and transferees include:
Ted Carreiro, partner
Carreiro joined KPMG in June 2012
Olivetree Financial Group, an equity brokerage and technology firm, has appointed Charlotte Wall to managing director and global head of product sales in London and New York.
Wall will begin her new role on 1 November 2012. Her key responsibilities will be to head up global sales of Olivetree Solutions’ OTAS platform to buy-side institutions, including asset managers and hedge funds.
Wall joins Olivetree from Markit Securities Finance, where she was also managing director and head of sales, following Markit’s acquisition of Data Explorers. Before that, she spent four years at Data Explorers and 16 years as managing director
The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) has appointed Donna M Milrod as chief administrative officer, effective mid-October.
Milrod (pictured) will report to president and chief executive officer Michael Bodson and serve as a member of the company’s management committee.
Milrod will have responsibility for the company’s finance, operations, regulatory relations, business continuity, vendor management and security functions.
“We are delighted that Donna is joining the DTCC leadership team,” says Bodson. “She is a proven leader with extensive global operations, finance and capital markets experience that will serve our company well as we continue to strengthen our core businesses and expand
Elementum Advisors is making two additions to its team which will strengthen the depth of its legal, compliance and operational infrastructure.
Bobbi Anderson (pictured) will join Elementum Advisors as principal and general counsel on 10 September 2012, and will transition into the additional role of chief compliance officer on 1 January 2013. Anderson is currently a partner in the insurance group at Sidley Austin in Chicago where she has been instrumental in shaping the direction of the insurance linked securities asset class through the development of new risk transfer structures and her work with (re)insurance companies on catastrophe bond, collateralized
Permal Group has hired Katie Jupp as institutional business manager. She joined on 16 August and reports to Paul Jeffries, head of UK institutional business.
Jupp’s focus is the UK market and includes investor relations, marketing and developing new, as well as maintaining existing client relationships, with UK based institutional investors and their advisers. This is a new role within Permal.
Jupp, who was previously at Sussex Partners, specialises in alternative strategies. At Sussex Partners she was associate director focusing on fund of hedge funds, and beforehand was a product specialist at AXA Investment Managers, where she was involved in
Jim Xiong has rejoined QFS Asset Management as co-chief investment officer.
Xiong and Jim Conklin, QFS’s other co-CIO and director of research, will collaborate with the firm’s founder, Sanford Grossman, in pursuing new research and managing the existing investment programs. Xiong will also join the QFS Investment Committee.
Xiong was an employee and partner of QFS for almost 14 years until he left in mid-2011 to take a sabbatical from the industry.
Prior to joining QFS in 1997, Xiong developed financial applications for Salomon Brothers and was a management scientist at General Electric’s Center for Research and Development. Prior to
CLS Group, a provider of risk mitigation services to the FX market, has appointed David Puth as chief executive officer.
Puth (pictured), who was also named chief executive of CLS Bank International, is scheduled to take up the position on 21 August 2012.
Puth’s career spans more than three decades in financial markets, including 19 years at J.P. Morgan where he served in a variety of senior global leadership roles, including oversight of the firm’s FX, interest rate derivatives, commodities, and emerging markets businesses. In addition, Puth served as a member of JPMorgan Chase’s executive committee.
After leaving
