Ex-RBC, BofA Traders Leave Tandem to Start Fund at TIG

Former Royal Bank of Canada and Bank of America Corp. proprietary traders plan to start a mortgage-focused structured-credit hedge fund at New York-based TIG Advisors LLC after leaving Tandem Global Management LP.

Stuart Lippman, 40, formerly a managing director and senior portfolio manager in the non-agency mortgage credit business of Royal Bank of Canada’s proprietary-trading group, and David Liu, 43, who managed portfolios in the global proprietary-trading group at Bank of America, left Tandem in July, where they had sought to start a mortgage fund, Lippman said in a telephone interview. He declined to comment on the reason for the departure.

Lippman and Liu plan to open a similar fund at TIG Advisors, where they started earlier this month. The TIG Securitized Asset Fund will trade residential mortgage-backed securities, which will comprise more than half of the portfolio, commercial-mortgage-backed securities and asset-backed securities, according to a presentation that was obtained by Bloomberg News.

The fund will start on Oct. 1 and has more than $100 million in commitments, Lippman said. In its mortgage securities, the fund will focus on seasoned subprime, lower- rated prime, Alt-A and option ARMs.

Lippman and Liu will work with four other investment professionals on the new fund, Lippman said. TIG Advisors, which has about $1 billion in assets, will provide marketing, investor relations, risk management, legal, compliance, technology, operations and accounting services, the firm’s president, Spiros Maliagros, said in a telephone interview. TIG Advisors has seven other hedge-fund strategies and was founded in 1980.

Ruggero de Rossi, partner and chief investment officer at Tandem, didn’t return a telephone call seeking comment.

To contact the reporters on this story: Kelly Bit in New York at kbit@bloomberg.net; Nathaniel Baker in New York at nbaker14@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Christian Baumgaertel at cbaumgaertel@bloomberg.net