BlueBay Asset Management, the London-based specialist fixed income manager, has appointed David Zobel as a Principal of the firm and Head of Hedge Fund Strategies. It is a newly created role. Zobel joins BlueBay from Deutsche Asset Management, where he was a Managing Director, responsible for the group’s European Fund of Hedge Funds business. Zobel founded Deutsche’s original Fund of Hedge Funds business in 1996, which was based in the Asia-Pacific region.
Zobel will report directly to Hugh Willis, Chief Executive. He will be responsible for all aspects of BlueBay’s hedge fund business other than the management of the portfolios themselves. Which means developing new hedge fund strategies for BlueBay; further broadening the company’s hedge fund investor base; and exploring structured product innovations for BlueBay’s funds
Established in 2001 with institutional backing, BlueBay says it has generated “exceptional” performance across its current hedge fund strategies in global investment grade credit, emerging markets, high yield and event driven strategies. This has attracted strong growth in assets under management, which recently passed the US$5 billion mark across both new generation long only and total return strategies. December 2005 also saw the launch of BlueBay’s Emerging Market Local Currency Bond Fund; one of the first dedicated products to be managed against JP Morgan’s new local market bond index the JP Morgan Government Bond Index-Emerging Markets (GBI-EM).
“David’s appointment represents a key strategic initiative for BlueBay and reflects our desire to embark on a second, major stage of growth and development in our hedge fund business – one designed to significantly build out and broaden our existing hedge fund business over the next two to three years,” says Hugh Willis. “We are delighted to have attracted someone of David’s calibre to spearhead the development of this crucial aspect of the firm’s strategy.”