Paul Nunan, managing director, Capita Financial Group Ireland
CAN YOU DESCRIBE YOUR CURRENT ROLE?
As managing director, my role is to grow the business in Ireland while continuing to provide best-in-class administration services to our clients; ensuring that we have the proper focus in the business on client delivery is my overriding concern.
WHAT DO YOU LIKE MOST ABOUT WORKING IN THE HEDGE FUND SECTOR?
The sector is dynamic and attracts some incredibly intelligent and diverse characters. This diversity makes my job interesting and ensures no two days are the same.
WHAT KEEPS YOU AWAKE AT NIGHT?
Apart from my one year-old daughter? The amount and the pace of regulatory change currently being driven through is slightly concerning and I do worry that in some cases a knee-jerk reaction to the events of the last couple of years could leave us with bigger problems in the years to come.
WHO DO YOU ADMIRE MOST IN THIS INDUSTRY?
I admire those asset managers who set up on their own and take on the responsibility of managing their clients’ money, as well as those who have strong convictions and are willing to…
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Kit-Kat in his lap and laughing manically, Choc-finger sits on his foil-encrusted throne, surrounded by mountains of stockpiled cocoa beans. His dark plan: to drive chocolate prices through the roof by hoarding the key ingredient in his evil lair, sending the world into a treat-starved frenzy only he can quell. The swine!
Ok, not quite. This is, however, how Britain’s popular press would like us to think of hedge fund manager Anthony Ward, awarding him the ‘Choc-finger’ moniker after he last week purchased 240,100 tonnes of cocoa beans in anticipation of a spike in prices. The natural enemy to Ian Fleming’s famous secret agent (the name’s Bond, Fixed-rate Bond), Choc-finger is of course a riff on James Bond villain Goldfinger, one of cinema’s best-known baddies.
The British media – never one to pass up the chance to create a good scoundrel – may have missed the point (inaccurately reporting Ward’s transaction as a morally dubious futures trade), but then, with the latest Bond film stuck in development hell, perhaps it was just too good an opportunity to add a bit of colour to the world of finance. After all, even financial journalists get bored sometimes…
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Describing hedge fund managers as having ‘weathered the financial storm’ is by now a well-worn cliché – in fact, if we had a pound for every time we’ve read it, we
could afford to start up our own fund (well, almost).
But using bad weather as part of an investment strategy, as investment manager Nephila Capital has been doing since 1998, is noticeably less common.
The Bermuda-based firm specialises in the reinsurance industry, investing in niche markets such as insurance-linked securities, catastrophe bonds, insurance swaps and weather derivatives.
It is named after the Nephila spider, a creature that, according to Bermuda folklore, is renowned for its ability to predict bad weather and is said to spin its strong, golden web close to the
ground when a hurricane is approaching – resulting in the dual nicknames of “hurricane spider” and the more-long-winded “golden silk orb-weaver”.
The company, in which Man has a 25% stake, is reported to have attracted institutional inflows of $340m into its catastrophe reinsurance fund in the second half of 2009, bringing total assets under
management in the platform to $2.6bn
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Richard Hadfield, portfolio advisor, Nemesis Asset Management
CAN YOU DESCRIBE YOUR CURRENT ROLE?
I am a portfolio advisor creating and managing customised multi-asset portfolios for ultra high-net-worth individuals and family offices, using some of the most sophisticated portfolio construction and asset allocation techniques available today.
WHAT DO YOU LIKE ABOUT THE HEDGE FUND SECTOR?
Its flexibility and entrepreneurial spirit. We are continually learning and reviewing the latest techniques and investment ideas. Forward-thinking hedge fund managers never stop exploring to help their investors reap fresh rewards.
IF YOU WERE DOWN TO YOUR LAST £1000, HOW WOULD YOU INVEST IT?
My ‘real world’ answer would be to start a car-washing business. It has a low capital cost structure and is cash in hand, allowing me to build up enough funds to pay my bills and move onto something more lucrative. In the end, money makes money. In the ‘financial world’, I would open up a financial spread betting or contract for difference account, for its low initial capital requirements and potentially lucrative results.
WHAT KEEPS YOU AWAKE AT NIGHT?
I like to go to sleep with a clear conscience. However, my…
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