By Claire Makin
Lyxor Asset Management believes that managed accounts are a lifeline for the hedge fund industry. By allaying investors’ worst fears, managed accounts are helping them to regain the trust in hedge funds that they lost in 2008, according to Nathanäel Benzaken, who heads managed account development for Lyxor. “Managed accounts are one of the few catalysts that can encourage institutions to allocate in big size to hedge funds,” he says.
The idea of managed accounts as a white knight for the industry is difficult to prove, but it works for Lyxor, which operates one of the industry’s largest single managed account platforms with almost $11 billion in assets. Deutsche Bank’s two platforms, added together, give it a slight edge in terms of assets under management (see Koris International, below).
Lionel Paquin, head of the Lyxor platform, describes it as “a...