Blackstone hires Caxton manager for global macro, emerging markets

BOSTON: Blackstone Group has hired a portfolio manager from hedge fund Caxton Associates to head its global macro and emerging markets strategies as uncertainty about interest rates is creating fresh investment opportunities in these areas.

Gabriel Sod Hoffs joined Blackstone Alternative Asset Management, the company's $80 billion hedge fund unit, as a managing director, Blackstone confirmed on Wednesday.

He will work with Alexander Moseley, who heads BAAM's Global Markets group, and will be in charge of tracking managers like Brevan Howard Asset Management and Rokos Capital Management as well as generating new investment ideas in currency and rates markets, among others.

So-called macro funds bet on bonds, stocks and currencies and hope to profit from big economic and political shifts. While many in this group have struggled recently, Alan Howard's Brevan Howard posted its best first-half returns in a decade this year.

Sod Hoffs, who earned his doctorate in economics from Harvard, worked as a portfolio manager at Caxton, a prominent macro fund, for about a year and previously worked as a senior investment associate at Ray Dalio's Bridgewater Associates. At Austin Credit Macro, a hedge fund seeded by TPG Capital, he was the chief investment officer.