Gerardine Davies, the former head of UK investment management at BNP Paribas who left the firm after just nine months in November 2012, has re-emerged in the City, launching her own hedge fund alongside two other senior investment bankers.
Davies has launched PCM Partners LLP, which describes itself as a ‘low-risk diversified investment’ vehicle, along with Arjan Verbeek, who was head of flow asset backed security and covered bond structuring at BNP Paribas, and Hamish Peacocke, who was most recently a director in Credit Suisse’s structured bonds desk, but formerly worked for BNP’s securitisation desk.
Davies joined BNP Paribas after a two-year hiatus from the industry in February 2012, but had left the firm by November. PCM Partners represents her first FCA-authorised role since that time.
Prior to joining BNP Paribas, Davies was co-head of retail property at Aegon Asset Management, but was once responsible for a £4.2bn open-ended property fund at Morley Fund Management during boom years up to 2007 – the largest such fund in the UK.
Verbeek had worked at BNP Paribas for nearly seven years before his exit in July last year. Before this, he was a director at Barclays Capital for just over three years.
PCM Partners’ launch suggests that the team is capitalising on hedge funds’ new-found appetite to buy discounted property loans from banks including those that have been packaged into asset-backed bonds.
Ellington Management Group is one U.S hedge fund heading to Europe and hiring to capitalise on the disposal of asset-backed securities by banks, and MKP Capital has also been recruiting. Meanwhile, Alistair Lumsden, who previously ran the $2.3bn asset-backed securities fund at CQS, has launched East Lodge Capital Partners, a $250m hedge fund focused on the asset class.
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