London-based RiverCrest Capital, a recently established absolute return-focused investment manager, has signed its first two teams with plans to launch funds PARA_BREAK_SENTINEL_9f8e7d6c

London-based RiverCrest Capital, a recently established absolute return-focused investment manager, has signed its first two teams with plans to launch funds for each of them reported Financial News this week. Former M&G Investments fund managers, Giles Worthington and Tim Short, are one team according to sources with knowledge of the matter. The RiverCrest European Equity Alpha fund will aim to launch before the end of 2011. It will employ a fundamental market neutral bottom-up stock picking strategy and be available in a UCITS structure. The second team consists of Alastair MacLeod and Peter Simon, formerly of Lansdowne. Their new fund, the RiverCrest Global Equity fund, will employ an equity l/s strategy and use a top-down approach to identifying stocks. This fund is due to launch in October. Managers at RiverCrest will have full investment autonomy and be supported by the firm’s infrastructure, sharing a centralized marketing team in much the same way as Thames River Capital, acquired by F&C Asset Management last year. Rod Barker is the co-founder and CEO of RiverCrest, which Sir John Beckwith and Mark Johnson helped establish by committing capital as co-founders of Pacific Investments: a multi-asset fund management group managing USD20billion on behalf of its investors.