People Moves Roundup | Chief Investment Officer

Bardin Hill Expands Partnership

Bardin Hill Investment Partners, formerly Halcyon Capital Management, announced the appointment of six new partners.

The appointments follow the firm’s completion of its succession plan last October when Jason Dillow was named chief executive officer, the firm formed a strategic partnership with TPG Sixth Street Partners and announced additional investments from existing partners of Bardin Hill, Dyal Capital, and the foundation of the firm’s founder, Alan B. Slifka.

The new partners at Bardin Hill include Pratik Desai, portfolio manager, opportunistic credit; Jacob Fishelis, chief financial officer; Andrew Friedman, partner, opportunistic credit; Damien Miller, portfolio manager, European opportunistic credit; Phil Raciti, portfolio manager, head of US performing credit; and Mark Simons, portfolio manager, merger arbitrage.

Never miss a story — sign up for CIO newsletters to stay up-to-date on the latest institutional investment industry news. 

Milliman Hires Radhika Philip to Expand Its Global Higher Education Consulting and Administration Practice

Milliman, Inc. announced the appointment of Radhika Philip as managing director, people strategy and HR transformation, for the firm’s global higher education (GHE) practice.

She joins Gary Setterberg, senior managing director, global higher education, as part of the multidisciplinary practice dedicated to providing employee benefit and human capital advisory and strategic consulting services to higher education and academic medical system clients.

Previously, she served as an executive director in Ernst and Young’s people advisory services and as vice president of people and operations for Aon.

Milliman’s higher education practice provides a full range of human capital, total rewards, employee benefits, and analytic/actuarial services, partnering with the firm’s health care, retirement, risk management, and cybersecurity experts. The practice also has access to Milliman’s market-leading administration services and its Healthcare Intelligence and Insurtech products.

“It’s vital that universities, colleges, and academic health systems receive consulting expertise that is not only sensitive and responsive to the complexities of our higher education institutions, but that is supported by a breadth and depth of expertise, data, and cutting-edge services,” said Philip.

Tim Nelson Appointed Managing Director of Korn Ferry Australasia Operations

Korn Ferry announced that Tim Nelson has been appointed managing director of its Australasian operations.

Nelson succeeds Katie Lahey AM, who after eight years as CEO and then executive chairman, will remain with the firm as non-executive chairman. She has recently been appointed to the Carnival Corp. board and is a non-executive director of Star Entertainment.

Nelson joined Korn Ferry as a financial services partner in 1998 before launching and growing Korn Ferry’s recruitment process outsourcing business across Australasia and Asia. He re-joined Korn Ferry’s executive search practice in 2014 to lead the Melbourne board, CEO and financial services practice and, in 2016, he was appointed managing director of Korn Ferry’s advisory business unit in Australasia.

Nelson has deep experience in growing professional services businesses and advising clients on leadership change, business transformation and governance. At Korn Ferry, he has established high-performing, profitable businesses and built and motivated teams to achieve great results. Most recently, he successfully completed the integration of the Hay Group into Korn Ferry developing a new strategy, structure, and vision for growth across the Australia-New Zealand region.

Nelson will assume his new role May 1.

Tags: Bardin Hill, Korn Ferry, Miliman, People Moves

The SEC has barred a Connecticut-based hedge fund manager after it discovered he lost $1.8 million in client assets from allegedly engaging in risky investment practices.

According to a cease-and-desist order from the SEC, Matthew Rossi and Fairfield, Conn.-based SJL Capital allegedly defrauded clients by misleading them about the nature and performance of their investment strategy, and by concealing trading losses. Rossi was the founder, managing partner, and 80% majority owner of SJL.

The order said that Rossi told investors that SJL’s MarketDNA Hedge Fund would invest in a diversified portfolio consisting primarily of publicly traded equities. Rossi said the fund would use what he claimed was a highly successful proprietary algorithm that he developed called MarketDNA. He told investors the algorithm had been refined over 20 years and included stop losses to limit downside risk.

However, the SEC said Rossi and SJL “engaged in risky, unhedged options trading, which did not comport with the purported MarketDNA strategy and did not include any safety valves or stop loss limits.”

For more stories like this, sign up for the CIO Alert newsletter. 

What had started out to be very promising for investors turned sour quickly. In June 2016, Rossi allegedly used the hedge fund’s assets to make a series of unhedged trades in put options and put trades, but managed to end the month with a whopping 101% return. The fund had additional gains of 15% from unhedged options trading in July, and reached its peak valuation of more than $1.3 million at the end of that month.

However, the fund’s success proved to be short lived as it lost approximately 88% of its value in August 2016 due to unhedged options trading. The largest losses came on Aug. 19 when Rossi sold short-dated Amazon call options at a loss of over $600,000. Minutes after closing that position, he purchased more Amazon call options as well as Priceline call options, and lost over $68,000 when he sold the Amazon options on Aug. 22. The fund was completely wiped out by November 2016.

Rossi allegedly hid the extent of the losses from investors by creating and distributing fake account statements and tax documents that falsely described the fund’s assets, as well as the supposed returns generated by the MarketDNA strategy.

According to the order, clients invested nearly $1.8 million with Rossi and SJL, and when they found out about the losses, Rossi allegedly fabricated a story that the losses were caused by a rogue trader who had been making trades for Rossi while he was undergoing knee surgery and couldn’t work.

The SEC has barred Rossi from association with any broker, dealer, investment adviser, municipal securities dealer, municipal advisor, transfer agent, or nationally recognized statistical rating organization. He is also prohibited from serving or acting as an employee, officer, director, member of an advisory board, or investment adviser.

Related Stories:

SEC Settles Charges Against 79 Advisers

SEC Charges Four in Elaborate Microcap Stock Fraud

Tags: Hedge Funds, Matthew Rossi, SEC, SJL Capital