03/07/2001

Boscott is first to get venture capital

Ed Boscott, who designed and implemented forecasting models used by Barclays Global Investors to manage some $10 billion in European equities, is working on plans to launch his own hedge fund based on a quantitative investment strategy.

Boscott has already become the first start-up hedge fund manager to get the backing of a UK venture capital company. The Summit Group, a London-based firm founded in 1985 by Barry Sack and Kit Hunter-Gordon, is providing business support and offices. It has also brought in hedge fund consultant David Miller, formerly of GAM, to join the board of Boscott’s management company, Oxford & Cambridge Investment Management.

The firm’s name reflects Boscott’s past at Oxford University, and the role being played by Stephen Satchell, a financial economist at Trinity College, Cambridge. The strategy is understood to be market neutral, based on about five key quantitative inputs, generating both short-term trading programmes typical of statistical arbitrage as well as some medium and longer-term positions.

Boscott left BGI in April 2000 after six years with the Barclays group, and has been working for some time on developing the technology and systems required for a robust quantitative approach. He is understood to be working towards a launch at the end of this year, aiming for an initial $10 million in seed capital with a ‘soft close’ at $50 million.

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