Morrow adds asset management to Aquantum

A quantitative trading expert from Winton Capital Management, Thomas Morrow, has announced his systematic managed futures index business, Aquantum, will expand into asset management.

Morrow left Winton in 2008 to set up Aquantum, based in Luxembourg, which provides systematic investment indices to structured investment product issuers. It then made a licensing agreement with the Royal Bank of Scotland and launched a series of indexed products, and is now opening an asset management business to continue this move. Morrow commented: “The establishment of a full-scale asset management business to directly harness Aquantum’s unique quantitative trading expertise is a natural next step.”

Other members of the Aquantum team include Moritz Seibert, previously responsible for RBS’s equity structuring business in the Americas, as well as Dr Jochen Mirth, Christian Schneider and Oliver Grimm, all former partners of fund manager Assenagon Group. Seibert commented: “We believe in the systematic approach because we know that markets are not fully efficient, which means consistent arbitrage opportunities do exist.” The firm has plans to launch a UCITS compliant fund by the end of 2012.