Argentiere Adds JPMorgan Exotic Trader Benharrats for Hedge Fund
Oct. 16 (Bloomberg) — Argentiere Capital AG, a hedge-fund firm run by JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s former head of global equity proprietary trading, hired Adel Benharrats from the bank.
Benharrats, 35, who specialized in exotic and relative value equity trades at JPMorgan in London, said he started this week at the Zug, Switzerland-based firm as a money manager.
Argentiere, founded by Deepak Gulati, started trading in June 2013 and has more than doubled assets since then to $615 million. The firm’s multistrategy fund has a focus on volatility, which has soared since Gulati recommended in July at a conference that investors try to profit from widening price swings. It also makes event-driven and quantitative trades, which use computer models.
“Volatility has picked up and that lends itself to the strategy, something we’ve seen in performance and investor interest during the third quarter,” said Tony Becker, who works in investor relations and marketing at Argentiere’s Chicago office. Becker declined to provide specific returns.
Gulati joined a growing group of bank proprietary traders that set up hedge funds since the 2008 financial crisis as regulations made risk-taking more difficult and cut compensation. Fifteen of Argentiere’s 19 employees previously worked at JPMorgan. Bill Daley, a former Illinois gubernatorial candidate, White House chief of staff and JPMorgan banker, joined in April as managing partner and head of Argentiere’s U.S. operations, based in Chicago.
To contact the reporter on this story: Simone Foxman in New York at sfoxman4@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Charles W. Stevens at cstevens@bloomberg.net Pierre Paulden, Josh Friedman
