UBS Group’s hedge fund business has hired Ken Geren, a former portfolio manager at Steven Cohen’s Point72, as chief investment officer of its newly formed absolute return strategy.
The strategy will fold the impact of environmental issues into its investment process, according to a statement expected to be released Wednesday by UBS O’Connor, the bank’s multistrategy hedge fund business. Geren will oversee a team that includes Gary Lisiewski, a managing director for capital markets and trading who also previously worked at Point72.
O’Connor said it will invest in the new absolute return strategy by “facilitating external capital sources.” In December, Institutional Investor reported that O’Connor was hiring an investment team for a new long-short fund focused on bets tied to environmental factors.
A spokeswoman for UBS declined to comment on fundraising, saying only that the hedge fund unit plans to expand Geren’s team.
He brings “deep investment and research capabilities” to UBS, helping its asset management group create an investment strategy that “directly incorporates the impact of climate change” on companies in the “energy economy,” Kevin Russell, CIO of O’Connor, said in the statement.
Geren was focused on energy-related investments at hedge fund firm Point72. His team’s “industry knowledge will further extend UBS Asset Management’s focus on climate aware investment strategies and help us to deliver innovative new products and add significant value for our clients,” Russell said.
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Before joining O’Connor this year, Lisiewski was a senior energy trader at Point72, according to the UBS spokesperson. He will serve as a portfolio manager primarily responsible for the hedge fund unit’s “environmental focus strategy,” the spokesperson said.
O’Connor had $5.1 billion of assets under management at the end of last year. The multistrategy hedge fund business is part of UBS Asset Management, which has about $903 billion invested across traditional asset management, hedge funds, real estate, infrastructure and private equity.
