Platt’s BlueCrest Spinning Off Leda Braga’s BlueTrend Funds

Sept. 26 (Bloomberg) — Michael Platt’s BlueCrest Capital Management LLP is spinning off its computer-driven hedge funds into a separate investment firm, just weeks after saying it would cut its management fees.

The new firm, Systematica Investments, will be led by Leda Braga, BlueCrest’s head of systematic trading, and manage the $8.3 billion in BlueTrend Fund and BlueTrend 2x Leveraged Fund, BlueCrest said in a statement today. The funds reduced management fees from 2 percent to 1.5 percent earlier this month after assets tumbled in the past year.

BlueCrest’s assets have slumped to $27.4 billion from a peak of $37.4 billion in May last year, according to an investor update. The BlueTrend strategy has shrunk almost 50 percent during the period after posting losses of 11.5 percent in 2013, its first annual decline since it was started a decade ago.

BlueCrest, which billionaire Platt started in 2000, had the ratings on its funds reduced earlier this year by a top investment adviser who said it hadn’t provided sufficient information about a proprietary fund run for the benefit of its partners.

–With assistance from Saijel Kishan in New York.

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