Qube launches in-house discretionary equity team

Qube is establishing its first internally managed discretionary equity portfolio management team. The London-headquartered firm is recruiting portfolio managers who will run long and short sector strategies within a multi-manager structure that will report to investor Naveen Baid.

Each portfolio manager will operate an independent book with direct responsibility for security selection, risk decisions and P&L inside the multi-manager framework, rather than contributing ideas to a single central portfolio.

Last year Qube created a team of sector-focused equity analysts led by former Balyasny executive Stephen Irvine. That analyst team generated investment ideas that were combined into a centralised portfolio; the new unit assigns decision-making authority and P&L responsibility to individual managers.

Qube is understood to manage about $50 billion in assets and has expanded its operations over the past two years. The new discretionary platform will sit alongside the firm’s quantitative strategies and its external allocations to fundamental equity managers.

The change follows a broader industry pattern of systematic investment firms adding fundamental equity, macro and alternative capabilities to complement algorithmic trading businesses.

Qube declined to comment on the reported plans.