Tourmaline Partners, an outsourced trading solutions firm, has made two senior hires in Australia, with Matt McShane joining as Director of Operations for Asia, and Simon Twiss as Director of Pan-Asia Trading.
Since opening its Asia-Pacific office in Sydney in January 2018, Tourmaline has seen increasing demand for its services. This growth has been driven in part by the global shift toward unbundling of trading commissions from research, and locally by the Hayne Royal Commission, which has created opportunity for firms that provide un-conflicted, unbiased, highly transparent professional services to the superannuation and investment industries.
McShane and Twiss bring skill sets that will prove instrumental in supporting Tourmaline’s growth. McShane has spent nearly 25 years in the financial services industry, gathering extensive experience in the operations and fund administration space. He most recently served as Head of Operations for Australian Philanthropic Services, and before that spent stints as Head of Operations at White Outsourcing, Ausbil Investment Management, Nikko Asset Management and Arnhem Investment Management.
Twiss has spent the past two decades in trading roles involving various asset classes. Before joining Tourmaline, he was a Partner at Arnhem Investment Management, where he led all trading efforts and worked closely with portfolio managers and analysts to generate alpha across a wide variety of portfolios. Prior to that he held roles at GLG Management and E-Trade Australia.
“Matt and Simon are great additions to our deeply experienced Australia team, and will be vital to our ongoing mission to provide top-flight solutions for our clients trading in the Asia-Pacific region,” says James Santo, Managing Director at Tourmaline in Sydney. “Matt’s long career in operations and Simon’s experience executing complex trading strategies in both developed and emerging markets are qualities that will prove invaluable to our clients.”
While demand for outsourced trading solutions has grown across the spectrum of buy-side entities, Tourmaline has seen a particular interest from superannuation funds as the move toward internalising portfolio management evolves. These funds are finding that outsourcing certain aspects of their trading affords them measurable benefits of scale and global reach that would otherwise require significant investment and effort to replicate without necessarily delivering the same benefits. At the same time, outsourced trading firms help navigate the evolving regulatory environment for trading globally.
“The growth we’ve seen in Australia and Asia has been driven by local issues as well as global demand for more transparency,” says Aaron Hantman (pictured), Tourmaline’s Chief Executive Officer. “The world is changing, and developments like MiFID II in Europe, or increased internalisation by superannuation funds in Australia and asset owners in the US, are emblematic of a growing need for the kind of specialisation that we provide.”
Tourmaline Partners provides solutions and expertise to over 300 institutional investment clients ranging from emerging hedge funds to multi-billion-dollar asset managers. Tourmaline’s Sydney office spearheads trading across the Asia-Pacific region, obviating the need for U.S. and European firms to operate a dedicated Asia desk, or route orders through New York or other financial centres.