Man Group’s CIO Sandy Rattray to leave hedge fund firm
Move triggers reshuffle of London-based group’s senior management
Man Group’s chief investment officer Sandy Rattray is to leave the group, sparking a reshuffle of the hedge fund firm’s senior management.
Rattray, a former Goldman Sachs staffer and a co-creator of the Vix index of market volatility, will hand over his responsibilities in the next few months and leave in the second half of the year, Man Group said. He has decided to leave the financial services industry to study architecture, according to people familiar with his plans.
Rattray has risen up the ranks at Man over the past decade. He became chief investment officer of systematic strategies in 2010, and then in 2013, as part of sweeping changes under new chief executive Manny Roman, became chief executive of its AHL unit, before advancing to CIO. Under Rattray’s stewardship, AHL’s assets have risen from $11.9bn at the end of 2013 to $45.3bn this year.
Man has endured mixed fortunes in recent years. It weathered the onset of the pandemic better than some rivals, posting a relatively small drop in assets and some net inflows in the first quarter of 2020, and posted inflows of $1.8bn for the calendar year. Assets have risen to a record $127bn this year.
However, investment performance has lagged behind in some areas, including its GLG European Long-Short fund and some computer-driven funds.
Man’s shares rose 0.4 per cent on Friday to 182p but are still below the 217p they hit in early 2018. In summer 2008, at their peak, they were worth more than 600p.
The $3.8tn hedge fund industry largely fared well during the worst of the market crisis last year. Funds on average gained 11.8 per cent, according to data group HFR, their best year of gains since 2009’s market rally in the wake of the global financial crisis. The industry’s best-performing managers enjoyed their biggest gains in a decade, according to LCH Investments.
However, some computer-driven managers have struggled with market volatility and to cope with its sharp reversals, with firms such as Bridgewater Associates and Renaissance Technologies enduring a tough year. Winton Group, set up by David Harding, a co-founder of Man’s AHL unit, has suffered a slump in assets after poor performance.
Following Rattray’s exit the role of CIO will be scrapped. However, chief financial officer Mark Jones will step down from the board to take on the role of deputy chief executive, looking after the AHL and Numeric units and Man’s technology functions that Rattray has led. Man also said that Antoine Forterre, who is co-chief executive of AHL, will become Man’s chief financial officer, succeeding Jones.
Man’s chair John Cryan said Rattray had played “a huge part in driving our innovation and growth”.