(Bloomberg) — Man Group Plc cut jobs for the second time in a year and reshuffled its leadership as part of Chief Executive Officer Robyn Grew’s ongoing overhaul of the world’s biggest publicly listed hedge fund firm.
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The London-based money manager told staff in a memo on Thursday that Greg Bond, chief executive officer of Man Numeric, head of Americas, will become the new chief investment officer for the group in a newly created role.
The firm had to “make some tough decisions, which has resulted in some redundancies in the last few days,” Grew said in the internal memo, seen by Bloomberg News.
A representative for Man Group, which managed $167 billion as of April 14, said a review of the businesses has resulted in the redeployment of some people and a “small reduction” in its global headcount. The company didn’t disclose the number of roles that were eliminated.
The firm’s headcount stood at 1,777 as of Dec. 31, the firm’s annual report shows.
Grew, the first female to be named CEO of the 242-year-old Man Group, has been restructuring the firm since she took the top job in September 2023. Last year, she merged the discretionary trading units and dumped three house brands in a reorganization that saw the exit of a top executive.
The company told staff that Eric Burl, the head of discretionary, was on his way out after more than two decades to explore opportunities beyond finance, Financial News reported this month.
Man Group has been among the leading asset managers investing heavily in cutting-edge artificial intelligence. Bloomberg News reported this month that the company’s quant equity unit started using an AI tool that digs into data for ideas, writes codes for potential strategies and tests them on historic data. Several dozen signals generated by the system have passed the investment committee and are slated to be deployed in live trading, one portfolio manager told Bloomberg News.
“I am particularly excited about the potential for AI to transform the way we operate,” Grew wrote in the memo.
The planned headcount reductions also come at a time when some of Man Group’s funds have reported mixed returns. A chaotic first half of the year was dominated by policy upheaval and Wall Street angst, roiling markets and widening the gap between winners and losers.