Girish Reddy and Jane Buchan, co-CEOs of hedge funds-of funds manager PAAMCO Prisma Holdings, will relinquish their titles Aug. 1 and leave the firm before the end of the year, confirmed the pair in an interview.
Effective Aug. 1, the company will be managed by an executive committee of six senior executives, three from each firm. Everyone is a managing director and partner of PAAMCO Prisma.
Each person will retain his or her current duties while serving on the committee, which will be chaired by Eric Wolfe, head of portfolio management for the Prisma side of the company.
PAAMCO Prisma Holdings was created in 2017 through the merger of Pacific Alternative Asset Management and Prisma KKR. KKR & Co. brokered the deal and retained a 39.9% stake in the firm (Pensions & Investments, Feb. 16, 2017).
Also joining the committee from Prisma are Paul Roberts, who leads the investment strategy group, and Vincent Cuticello, general counsel and chief compliance officer.
From PAAMCO, Anne-Gaelle Carlton, head of client service, will join the committee with Mayer Cherem, a sector specialist who manages PAAMCO's opportunistic portfolio, and Von Hughes, who heads the unit's strategic advisory practice and works closely with large institutional investors.
Ms. Buchan and Mr. Reddy will remain with the firm until the end of this year as senior advisers.
Each firm will continue to manage its own hedge funds of funds and customized hedge fund investment strategies from Irvine, Calif., and New York, respectively, but the combined entity is close to finishing the integration of duplicative functions such as administration, investment technology and business development, Mr. Wolfe said.
While the units will continue to manage their investments separately because their approaches are “very different,” Ms. Carlton said the investment teams are increasingly sharing research and collaborating.
Mr. Reddy said the time was right for him and Ms. Buchan to step aside.
“We planned this merger carefully to build a world-class alternative investment platform. We are at the stage now that the organization is at the right place on the glidepath, an inflection point where we're comfortable with the leadership change,” he said.
Mr. Reddy will retire from money management, but will continue as chair of the investment committee for Cornell University's $6.8 billion endowment and an executive trustee on the endowment board. He said he also will continue his personal philanthropic activities with a focus on education.
Ms. Buchan will lead the spinout of PAAMCO's alternative beta strategy effective Jan. 1. She said she is “very excited” about launching a quantitatively managed hedge fund firm using alternative beta, noting the firm has yet to be named.
PAAMCO Prisma has $30 billion in assets under management and advisement.