Chris Goekjian is prowling the markets for a few good proprietary traders. The newly appointed CIO of London-based hedge fund firm Cheyne Capital Management sees the massive staffing cuts at the world’s biggest banks as an invitation to recruit talent. The 48-year-old American expatriate, who was talent-spotted himself by CEO Jonathan Lourie to help oversee Cheyne’s $6 billion in assets, will handle risk management and oversight of the firm’s portfolio management teams, as well as help Cheyne engineer new, specialized investment funds. Reviewing trading strategies is familiar to Goekjian, who ran a small, London-based fund-of-hedge-funds firm, AltEdge Capital, which Cheyne intends to acquire. Goekjian, who joined Cheyne last month, says the bloodletting in investment banking gives hedge fund traders an advantage. “Essential proprietary risk-taking is going to shift even further to hedge funds — at least those that survive — because the reality is that banks cannot or will not use their balance sheets for that purpose,” he says. “We see a lot of talent flowing our way.”
