Acadian reaches out to London academic

Acadian Asset Management has developed a systematic credit strategy hiring Scott Richardson to lead it.

In his new role as director of systematic credit, Richardson will seed the first strategies next year.

This work will initially focus on corporate credit-based strategies, including high-yield corporate, investment-grade corporate, and credit long-short.

Richardson joins from AQR Capital Management's alternative premia group, overseeing research in credit and fixed-income markets.

Before that, he was a professor at London Business School, where he still teaches.

Earlier, he held senior positions at BlackRock (Barclays Global Investors), including head of Europe equity research and head of global credit research.

"Commenting on the appointment, Acadian chief executive Ross Dowd said: "We believe incremental investment in our research and resources towards credit will provide differentiated fixed income strategies for our clients."

"We continue to see investor demand for systematic strategies offering consistent returns paired with clarity around return drivers."

Acadian chief Investment officer, Brendan Bradley, said these fixed income strategies most closely resemble the equity strategies the firm currently manages today and will benefit from our existing expertise in data analysis, signal construction, and trading.