Englander Said to Leave Citigroup to Join Hedge Fund Firm Rafiki

(Bloomberg) -- Steven Englander resigned as global head of Group-of-10 currency strategy at Citigroup Inc. to join Hong Kong-based hedge fund Rafiki Capital Management, according to people familiar with the matter.

Englander will join Rafiki Capital as head of research and strategy in New York by the end of June, said the people, who asked not to be named because the information hasn’t been publicly disclosed. Rafiki manages a cross-asset fund that uses instruments including derivatives to take investment positions based on macroeconomic views.

Spokesmen at Rafiki Capital and Citigroup declined to comment.

Englander spent seven years at New York-based Citigroup in its global markets division as head of G10 FX strategy. Before joining Citigroup in 2010, he worked at Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and Barclays Plc. Early in his career he was with the Federal Reserve in New York and the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

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Rafiki Capital Management was started last year by two former Credit Suisse Group AG managing directors who had both earlier worked at UBS Group AG. Lucas Kiely was previously Credit Suisse’s head of cross-market trading and Charles Firth was Asia Pacific head of equity structuring. Rafiki hired Brenton Battenfeld, former head of hedge fund sales at Barclays Plc, late last year, Bloomberg News reported at the time.

Global hedge funds have posted meager returns recently as they’ve struggled to anticipate market moves amid political shocks and uncertainty over policy. Funds betting on macroeconomic themes gained 0.7 percent in the first two months of 2017 and rose 3.4 percent last year, compared to a 4.6 percent gain across all strategies, according to Singapore-based data provider Eurekahedge.

--With assistance from Hema Parmar

To contact the reporter on this story: Suzy Waite in Hong Kong at swaite8@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Sree Vidya Bhaktavatsalam at sbhaktavatsa@bloomberg.net, Nathaniel E. Baker