Europe

Axa Investment Managers has hired Hans Stoter to global head of fixed income and interim head of multi asset client solutions. He was previously cio at NN Investment Partners.

DBRS has hired Edward Dittmer to its CMBS team as svp and will be based in New York. He was previously svp in the CMBS team at Morningstar.

BlueBay has appointed Sid Chhabra to the newly created role of structured credit and CLOs, based in London. He will be leading a new drive to manage a range of BlueBay global structured credit and ABS strategies. He was previously at Anchorage Capital.

Octopus Property has hired Matthew Pritchard as head of structuring, based in London. He was previously a portfolio manager at Man Group and head of structured products Europe for Deutsche Pfandbriefbank.

Fund launches

Janus Henderson is planning to launch a mortgage-backed securities ETF. The firm has filed a preliminary registration statement with the SEC and it will be called the Janus Henderson Mortgage-Backed Securities ETF (JMBS) and will be co-managed by John Kerschner and Nick Childs.

Neuberger Berman is preparing to launch a CLO Income Fund pending approval at the end of July. It is aimed at investors looking for floating rate strategies in a rising interest rate environment.

North America

Two Harbors, a hybrid mortgage real estate investment trust, today appointed William Greenberg and Matthew Koeppen as co-deputy Chief Investment Officers, effective 1 July 2018. Prior to joining Two Harbors in 2012, Greenberg was an md at UBS AG. Most recently, Koeppen served as an md of business development, where he was responsible for a variety of initiatives to diversify and grow assets under management.

Secured crypto-token in the works

Artificial intelligence firm Blockchain Assets AI has launched with the aim of creating a US-compliant securitised and asset-backed crypto-token, called the Numeum. Unlike other cryptocurrencies that have limited or no intrinsic value, the Numeum - which will be issued by the Numeum Wealth Fund – is designed to have an intrinsic value, as its price will be supported by an actively managed asset pool backing the token. Further, the structure of the ‘Numeum System’ should allow the public to invest into a fund structure operating on the blockchain that was previously limited to accredited investors. The firm is currently seeking new directors/officers and is conducting a seed round via a private placement.

Sub-advisor motion due

An emergency motion to approve break-up fee, expense reimbursement and replacement sub-advisory requirements in the bankruptcy case of Highland Capital Management affiliate Acis Capital will be heard in the Texas Northern Bankruptcy Court on 6 July. The motion seeks an order granting an allowed administrative expense claim to Oaktree Capital Management and authorisation for the firm to replace Highland as sub-advisor to the ACIS CLO 2013-1, 2014-3, 2014-4, 2014-5 and 2015-6 deals. The bankruptcy petition was brought by ousted Acis portfolio manager Josh Terry and was converted from a chapter 7 case to a chapter 11 case in May, with Robin Phelan subsequently being appointed chapter 11 trustee for the debtors.