Mercurio joined GLG in September last year from the Government of Singapore Investment Corp while Freischmidt took up his post in March this year, leaving Singapore-based LionRock Capital, a firm he co-founded, to do so.
The new business will be based on a fundamental stock-picking strategy aligned with strict risk management similar to GLG’s decade-old European long-short investment team.
Alongside Mercurio, also co-head of global equity strategies, and Freischmidt will be a team of four portfolio manager, two of who will be new recruits to GLG.
Nick Vidale will join in August as a financials portfolio manager from CLSA in Hong Kong, bringing with him more than 15 years’ experience including roles with Arnott Capital and Deutsche Asset Management.
Sahil Khanna is to be GLG’s new consumer & TMT portfolio manager, again arriving in August, from Geosphere Capital where he was a senior analyst covering consumer and technology sectors.
The other two portfolio managers are David Walsh (industrials) and Carl Esprey (materials) who have been with GLG since April 2012 and January 2008 respectively. Esprey will be based in London.
Pierre Lagrange, co-founder of GLG and chairman of Man Asia said: “When we started the European long-short strategy eleven years ago, the environment in Europe looked very like it does in Asia today, with strong longs and shorts likely to emerge.
“The new team will seek to capture the returns available from dispersion, based on the same processes we have employed successfully in Europe.”
