BlueCrest Hires Nomura’s Head of Emerging Market Credit Trading

Stock Chart for Nomura Holdings Inc (8604)

BlueCrest Capital Management LLP, the $36 billion hedge-fund firm run by former JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) trader Michael Platt, is hiring Nomura Holdings (8604) Inc.’s head of emerging markets credit trading, Marcel Kfoury.

Kfoury, who joined Nomura in July 2009, resigned on Oct. 1 to become credit portfolio manager for the hedge fund, he said today in a phone call from London. He’ll be based in the U.K. capital and will start his new post in January, he said.

BlueCrest, the third-biggest European hedge fund, is luring traders from rival asset managers and Wall Street banks as it seeks to build an “investment-bank quality” trading group, pushing traders to avoid big bets on the direction of bond prices and instead profit from smaller market anomalies, according to its website. The firm has increased its assets by about $7 billion since the end of 2011.

Kfoury will help manage part of a $2 billion emerging markets fund, he said declining to be more specific. Before joining Nomura, he worked at Deutsche Bank from 2005 as a credit derivative swap trader, he said.

A spokeswoman for London-based BlueCrest, who asked not to be identified, declined to comment when reached by Bloomberg today. A spokesman for Nomura wasn’t immediately available.

To contact the reporter on this story: Zainab Fattah in Dubai at zfattah@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Dale Crofts at dcrofts@bloomberg.net; Andrew Blackman at ablackman@bloomberg.net