News

John Godden leaves HFR Asset Management

January 10, 2006 at 7:00 am

Share this article

John Godden, MD of HFR Asset Management's European operation, and widely credited with sigPARA_BREAK_SENTINEL_9f8e7d6c

John Godden, MD of HFR Asset Management's European operation, and widely credited with significantly raising its AUM, is understood to have left the firm.

As Hedgeweek went to press last (Monday) night, Godden was not available for comment, but confirmation is expected on his move over the next few days, while HFR AM works on organising the handover of Godden's significant responsibilities to the rest of the European team.

Likely candidates for his replacement include Marc Denogent, who was appointed last year as executive vice president for HFR AM's business in Switzerland.

Denogent joined HFR AM from Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein (DrKW) where he was vice president of equity derivative products for Swiss institutional investors. In his HFR AM role, he has been focusing on distributing and supporting the sale of the firm's existing products to private and institutional investors in Switzerland as well as growing the asset management business.

Denogent has a ten-year track record in structuring and marketing complex financial derivative instruments specialising in fund and hedge fund derivatives, and worked with Godden while he was at DrKW on the launch of structured products based on the HFRX Indices. A dual national of Switzerland and Australia, Denogent worked at UBS Warburg for four years before joining DrKW and before that, at Valorinform SA, the Geneva based financial services group. He is a graduate in economics and accounting.

Commenting last year on Denogent's appointment, Godden said: '"Having worked with Marc in the past, it has become apparent to me that he is one of the smartest, most innovative bankers in the field of structured products in Europe.'

Godden himself is a passionate believer in early stage investments in hedge funds and has also been working on developing a suite of structured products to meet institutional demand for these emerging managers.

A graduate in Mathematics, Godden spent the first 10 years of his career working in the pension consultancy sector. Before joining HFR AM, Godden was with Barclays Capital where he was responsible for developing Structured Derivative Products for European Financial Institutions and helped develop BarCap's Mutual and Hedge Fund Structured Product capability.