ECOR Asset Management, the new advisory and investment management firm launched by Ray Iwanowski and Tony Kao, is planning to roll out systematic macro hedge funds in the beginning of 2012, according to people familiar with the firm’s plans.
Iwanowski, who was previously co-head of the Quantitative Investment Strategies group at Goldman Sachs Asset Management, will be managing the funds and has already hired several former GSAM portfolio managers and traders to work for him. The funds will be part of the Alpha Strategies business line of SECOR.
It is unclear how much, if any, money the firm has raised for its fund launches yet, though SECOR includes a consulting arm that already has $7.5 billion in assets under advisement. The firm, which was launched last year by Iwanowski and Kao, the former chief investment officer of General Motors Asset Management, has a third division that helps plan sponsors mitigate risk through an asset and risk management platform. Iwanowski and Kao declined to comment.
SECOR has staffed up considerably in the past few months to get ready for the launch of the Alpha Strategies business. This growth is being underwritten in part by an investment from Babson Capital Management, a subsidiary of MassMutual Financial Group, which bought a minority stake (less than 10%) in SECOR in September. Iwanowski and Mark Carhart, the other former co-head of the QIS business at GSAM, both quit the firm in March 2009. The pair managed the Global Alpha fund, which at its $12 billion peak was one of Goldman’s largest hedge funds but posted steep losses in 2007. Performance improved in 2008 and 2009, but the fund hit another rough patch in 2011. Assets had dwindled to just $1.6 billion, and Goldman opted to shutter the fund in mid-September.
Carhart is now running his own new hedge fund, Kepos Capital, in New York. Kepos has $150 million under management and returned 7% net of fees through early September.
