Abhijeet Gaikwad, former money manager at Millennium Capital Management, was hired at Man Group as it seeks to build a new quantitative investment unit.
The firm started hiring for the Oxford, England-based “quantitative incubating” unit last month, a spokeswoman said. Sanatan Rai, who previously worked at BlueCrest Capital Management, has also joined as a money manager.
The unit will give capital to individual money managers to use mathematical models to trade across asset classes. It's part of Man Group's $17 billion AHL division that uses computer-driven strategies and is led by Francois Moreau and Jaco Vermaak, according to a person familiar with the matter. Three more money manages are expected to join this year, the person said, asking not to be identified because the information is private.
The Man Group spokeswoman declined to comment on hiring plans.
Man Group managed $78.7 billion in assets at the end of last year and has been hiring money managers to diversify its business. It has benefited from a mounting regulatory burden that's forcing many traders to abandon plans to start their own funds and instead join existing firms. Investors are also becoming reluctant to give money to startups.
About a tenth of the 910 hedge funds started last year followed quantitative strategies, down from 13% in 2014, according to data from Preqin.