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Posted by ricardo bubman

It’s been a good start for hedge funds this year, with the vast majority of strategies posting positive gains for January, according to figures from EDHEC Risk. Recruitment has also been active, with some firms painting a picture of expansion in 2013. Here’s our top ten.

1. Balyasny Asset Management

This Chicago-headquartered $3.8bn multi-strategy, macro-focused hedge fund set up Dmitry Balyasny in 2001, has been among the most active hirers so far this year and looks set to continue to build its team. In February, former Perry Capital executive Maulin Shah joined its New York office to run a new event-driven fund, and Mark Cusumano was hired for its San Francisco operation in January. Both men are expected to hire a team of analysts to support their efforts.

The firm now has around 180 staff, and is currently recruiting for around 15 roles. These include a credit long-short analyst in Chicago and, in New York, a quant analyst, enterprise tech analyst and investment long-short analyst.

A spokesperson declined to comment on future hiring plans and said all recruitment is kept in-house.

2. Lutetium Capital

Paul S. Greenberg, the co-founder of $1.13bn hedge fund Trilogy Financial Partners, is planning on launching a new firm, Lutetium Capital, in the spring according to Hedge Fund Intelligence . He’s been quietly assembling his team this year.

In January, Michael Carley, head of trading at Trilogy, joined as chief investment officer at Lutetium Capital; Matthew Glass, a former partner at Colbeck Capital Management, came on as director of research; John Dyment, a former head of hedge fund distribution at UBS, is Lutetium’s new chief operating officer and Justin Mauskopf, a Goldman Sachs alumnus and most recently a senior analyst in operational due diligence at Aksia, is its new chief financial officer.

It’s just establishing its headquarters in an office at the Metro Center in  Stamford and is expected to expand. The firm could not be reached for comment.

3. Man Group

Man Group has been more associated with firing than hiring in the past two years, having cut 400 jobs in 2011 with promises for further layoffs last year as it strips out £100m in costs.

But with the management shake-up led by incoming chief executive Emmanuel Roman comes a change of strategy when it comes to hiring. The FT suggests that AHL, Man Group’s struggling flagship quant fund, is about to embark on a recruitment spree.

Man Group declined to comment further, but there are some tentative signs of life on its careers site. There are just 12 new roles, but one of these is for a London-based quantitative portfolio manager and another for a quant analyst. The majority of other jobs are technology-based.

4. Saba Capital Management

The $5.3bn fund launched by former Deutsche Bank hot shot, Boaz Weinstein, shot to fame last year for its part in exposing the $2.3bn hole in J.P. Morgan’s balance sheet created by the ‘London whale,’ Bruno Iksil. So far this year, its offshore fund has risen 3.9% and is among the top performers, according to Bloomberg .

The firm is hiring – in the U.S. it has recruited Gabriel Roberts. the former head of global index trading at Citigroup, as well as Paul Kazarian from Royal Bank of Canada. In the U.K. Saba has recruited Arup Ghosh from Barclays as a credit trader in January and added William Staddon from UBS as a trading assistant. It also promoted Benton Moyer to a member of its limited liability partnership in November.

Saba did not respond for requests for comment.

5. Blackstone Alternative Asset Management

OK, Blackstone isn’t a hedge fund, but it has recruited experts for its Alternative Asset Management division in order to distribute its some $46bn in AUM to selected hedge funds. In February, BAAM hired Anthony Maniscalco from Barclays’ financial institutions investment banking division as a managing director and is still looking to hire from banks and hedge funds.

J. Tomilson Hill, vice chairman of Blackstone and president and CEO of BAAM, said that the firm is planning a “significant increase in professional headcount in 2013”. A spokesperson for the firm declined to comment further.

6. J. Goldman & Co.

This $895.6m firm only has 35 investment professionals working out of its office in New York, according to SEC filings, so when it makes a handful of new hires it’s regarded as an expansion.

Hedge Fund Alert reported that the firm has hired three new members to its investment team in January. David Dove joined as a portfolio manager covering chemical company investments from Catapult Capital; Neal Chandoke was hired as a consumer stock analyst from SAC Capital and Bo Yang took the role as transportation-company analyst, coming from Guggenheim Partners.

A spokesperson for the firm declined to comment.

7. Guggenheim Global Trading

Guggenheim Partners, which has $170bn in assets under management, wants to grow its headcount in Chicago by over 200 this year. Hiring in its hedge fund subsidiary Guggenheim Global Trading is decidedly more low key, but as a proportion of headcount, it’s nonetheless significant. It’s currently employs 15 portfolio managers, but is planning to hire a further 10 this year for its multi-strategy hedge fund, Loren Katzovitz and Patrick Hughes, partners at Guggenheim Partners, told Bloomberg .

8. Scipion Capital

Scipion Capital, the London-based African commodities investment specialist, has just five people registered with the UK’s Financial Services Authority, including founder and chief investment officer Nicolas Clavel and chief financial officer and head of trade finance origination Anthony Kukielski.

It’s a small operation, but it is expanding in response to what Clavel said was a “huge amount of interest” in its Commodities Trade Finance Fund. It has named Georgina Fleming in the newly-created role of product management and development and George Sanders and Ben Storrs as analysts. The firm didn’t return requests for further comment.

9. Brevan Howard

Brevan Howard, the $36.7bn hedge fund, has a reputation for poaching from the big investment banks and it’s been quietly expanding. In the US employee numbers have gone from two in June last year to 16 and it’s picked up some big names.

Don Carson, former head of Credit Suisse’s US dollar swaps desk has joined in recent months, as has Josh Bertman from Credit Suisse. It’s also been added people this year in other locations Charif El Shafey joined in February, while Wayne Leslie, previously a partner in the European credit trading division at Goldman Sachs, joined Brevan Howard’s credit trading desk in January. Hirak Biswas, who was director of U.S. government bond trading at Credit Suisse also joined its Geneva office. Meanwhile, Jose Oswoldo Montforte, who joined from BTG Pactual as a portfolio manager in Sao Paulo in May last year, was added to the FSA register in January.

Brevan Howard declined to comment.

10. Herring Creek Capital

Maverick Capital’s Steve Galbraith left the firm in September last year and resurfaced with Herring Creek Capital at the end of November. The firm is set to lease a 7,314 square feet office in Stamford, Connecticut and is expected to start hiring soon. Headhunters have painted Galbraith’s move as a shrewd one. suggesting that the number of hedge fund closures and redundancies will make the recruitment of portfolio managers and analysts easier.

Galbraith could not be reached for comment.