Morgan Stanley Hires Haigh to Head Global Emerging Markets

(Bloomberg) -- Morgan Stanley said it hired former hedge fund manager Kay Haigh as global head of emerging markets in London, within its foreign exchange and developing markets business.

Haigh joined the U.S investment bank from Avantium Investment Management U.K., where he was chief executive officer and founding partner, according to Tom Walton, a spokesman for Morgan Stanley in London. Avantium, which was a macro emerging markets hedge fund, closed last year, according to the Financial Conduct Authority register.

Avantium was shut down because appetite for dedicated emerging-markets funds decreased, leading to an “erosion” of assets, Lucy Blair, Avantium’s head of marketing and investor relations, told Financial News in February 2014. That month Brevan Howard Capital Management closed a fund managed by Geraldine Sundstrom after it lost money amid a rout in emerging markets.

There was a two-fold increase in the number of respondents who identified developing-nation equities and currencies as the assets they’d most like to bet against, according to a quarterly Bloomberg Global Poll published last month. Investor confidence in emerging markets is faltering as China posts the slowest economic expansion in 24 years, Russia remains embroiled in the Ukraine conflict and Brazil’s economy sputters.

Before setting up Avantium in 2011, Haigh worked for Deutsche Bank AG, where he was global head of emerging markets fixed-income trading.

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