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Man Group, the world’s largest listed hedge fund supervisor, has ordered its London-based quants to briefly return to the workplace 5 days per week amid a interval of poor efficiency.
Man AHL, the agency’s flagship systematic investing arm, has instructed workers that it now expects day by day attendance on the workplace from its group.
The change applies to about 150 individuals in London — slightly below 10 per cent of the general group’s 1,700 workers globally — and covers a three-month interval from Might till the top of July.
“Man AHL has requested its workers in London to work within the workplace 5 days per week for a three-month interval to help an ‘all palms on deck’ cross-team analysis venture,” stated Man Group.
“Whereas these cross-team initiatives are rare, expertise has proven {that a} interval of extremely targeted, in-person collaboration permits important analysis progress to be made in a comparatively brief period of time,” it added. “The agency’s broader agile working coverage stays unchanged.”
The directive is a change in stance for the $172.6bn asset supervisor. Man Group has traditionally considered its tradition of versatile working preparations, together with working from dwelling, as a aggressive benefit.
“You can’t think about how badly this has gone down with quants,” stated an individual acquainted with the state of affairs. “The temper is unhealthy.”
The state of affairs varies by position. However on common, workers are typically within the workplace three days per week, in response to a second particular person acquainted with the state of affairs.
Man Group’s cross-team effort comes as computer-driven hedge funds similar to AHL have suffered important losses this yr.
The market volatility triggered by US President Donald Trump’s on-off commerce warfare has made one in all their primary methods — making an attempt to latch on to persistent market tendencies — tough, as markets have swung in numerous instructions.
Man Group’s AHL is without doubt one of the longest-running systematic hedge fund managers. Its flagship institutional trend-following technique, the AHL Alpha Programme, misplaced 10 per cent thus far this yr, and was up simply 3.2 per cent in 2024.
Regardless of longtime efforts to diversify the broader enterprise past AHL, Man Group’s share worth stays carefully linked to the efficiency of its quant enterprise due to the upper charges it instructions. The corporate’s shares have misplaced a 3rd of their worth prior to now 12 months.
Man Group is the most recent monetary companies group to tighten its versatile working insurance policies. Final month the Monetary Instances revealed that BlackRock, the world’s largest asset supervisor, was telling workers that its roughly 1,000 managing administrators globally can be anticipated to work from the workplace full time.
Different giant monetary establishments similar to JPMorgan have additionally curtailed versatile working insurance policies, with the US financial institution in January ordering its greater than 300,000 workers to come back again into the workplace 5 days per week.
JPMorgan chief govt Jamie Dimon has been one of the vital vocal opponents of a work-from-home tradition, which he has stated “doesn’t work for younger individuals . . . doesn’t work for administration . . . doesn’t work for innovation.”