Bloomberg- David Sherr, a former Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. executive, is opening a New York-based hedge fund to trade today’s most toxic investments: mortgage bonds and asset-backed securities.
Sherr, a 21-year Lehman veteran who most recently ran the firm’s securitization group, is starting One William Street Capital Management LP after Peloton Partners LLP and Sailfish Capital Partners LLC collapsed because of losses in the credit markets. With the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index down 11.6 percent in 2008, Treasury yields at five-year lows and Wall Street firms cutting more than 15,000 jobs, it’s a good time for managers with a clean slate to raise money, according to industry executives.
“The timing is great because the market dislocations create opportunities and have shaken out a lot of very good talent,” said Patric de Gentile-Williams, chief operating officer of FRM Capital Advisors Ltd., a London-based firm that seeds hedge funds. “Some guys on Wall Street prop desks who feel like their capital has been cut are looking at making the leap to setting up their own business.”
