Greg Tournant and
Trevor Taylor have joined
Oppenheimer Capital as portfolio managers for the firm's four spread strategies, a component of its Structured Products Group.
Scott Powell and
Kevin Cooney have come on as analysts in the same area, said Spokeswoman Sue Hunter. All of the positions are new. They will be joining Stephen Bond-Nelson, portfolio manager, and Analysts Valentin Ivanov and Michael Purcell.
Oppenheimer is building out the team despite recent poor performance of portable alpha strategies, said Hunter. "The firm's structured products as a whole have had excellent performance since their inception in 2005. Portable alpha's short-term performance is just a speed bump," she said. The spread strategies include absolute return, equity portable alpha, fixed-income portable alpha and enhanced index. Oppenheimer's structured alpha absolute yield strategy returned -8.73% for the one year ending in November, according to Informa Investment Solutions' PSN database.
The
team was lifted out of Miami-based Innovative Options Management, a non-discretionary sub-advisor to Oppenheimer's structured alpha and enhanced index offerings. Previously, Tournant was partner and co-cio at Innovative Options. He joined the firm in 2007. Prior to that he was a managing director and the head of the structured products group at OpCap. Taylor was the founder of Innovative Options. Stephan Susano, managing partner at Innovative Options, declined to comment or provide more details.
Oppenheimer Capital is an independent unit of Allianz Global Investors. It manages $13.1 billion as of the end of September.