Graticule Fund Said to Part Ways With at Least 5 Staff

(Bloomberg) -- Graticule Asset Management Asia, the $4.8 billion hedge fund led by Adam Levinson, parted ways with at least five employees in May including longtime money manager Gerard Gwee, according to people familiar with the matter.

The Singapore-based hedge fund last month let go of Matthew Parsons, who was a senior compliance executive, and London-based execution specialist Edward Voyce, while ending relationships with U.S.-based quantitative consultants Hans Kullberg and Shi Qiwei, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the matter has not been publicly disclosed. Since December, other employees who’ve left include Thomas Barket, a former Singapore-based partner, and Joel Guglietta, who was a quantitative strategist, the people said.

While the reasons for the departures aren’t clear, the moves come at a time of intense upheaval in the global hedge fund industry. Investment firms worldwide are restructuring their businesses, cutting staff and examining their products after clients pulled money from hedge funds amid mediocre returns.

A spokesman for Graticule declined to comment.

Founded by former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. trader Levinson, 47, Graticule was spun out of Fortress Investment Group LLC’s Asia macro hedge fund in January 2015. Gwee and Barket, who had also worked at Fortress, were among the early employees at Graticule. Investors removed money from Graticule’s Asia macro fund in the first quarter of this year, the people said.

Graticule rebounded from first-quarter redemptions and received $270 million in new money after March 31 as the firm launched a new product, one of the people said. The firm has also hired six people since April across various positions, said the person, who didn’t provide names or titles of the new hires. The firm had about 86 employees as of March, according to regulatory filings.

The firm’s Graticule Asia Macro Fund Class A advanced 2.3 percent this year through May, according to an investor newsletter obtained by Bloomberg. The fund rose 6.1 percent last year, after advancing 1.8 percent in 2015, according to the newsletter. The fund declined 1.2 percent in 2014.

Macro funds, which bet on economic developments such as changes in interest or exchange rates, have struggled as managers fail to anticipate market movements, advancing less than 5 percent in each of the past six years, according to data provider Eurekahedge Pte. They returned 1.3 percent this year through the end of May, the data show.

Bridgewater Associates, the world’s largest hedge fund manager, indicated last year that it’s planning to cut jobs as parts of its business become too large. Tudor Investment Corp. last year closed its Singapore trading desk as part of a global shakeup.