IFSC executives create hedge fund firm

Six senior Irish funds executives have joined to establish a new large-scale, homegrown hedge funds administration business in the IFSC.

The six were, until the start of this year, the most senior staff in PFPC, one of the IFSC's largest funds companies.

Their new company, Quintillion, was licensed by the Irish Financial Services Regulatory Authority yesterday and will begin hiring staff immediately.

Quintillion means a billion billion, with the name designed to signal the firm's ambitions to grow quickly and substantially. The company is 75 per cent-owned by the six executives, with a 25 per cent seed investment taken by a US financial house which has not been named.

It is thought, however, to be Bear Stearns, which already operates a bank in Dublin.

The six executives - Joan Kehoe, Linda Gorman, Charles Gillanders, Garrett Breen, Paul Feely and Ken Sommerville - will share the remaining 75 per cent in more or less equal parts.

This structure offers some signal of the IFSC's maturity since all six individuals gained their skills by working in the Dublin funds industry. Ms Kehoe, the former president of PFPC International, will take on the role of chief executive at Quintillion.

She had been with PFPC for 13 years and had overseen its expansion from two staff to 850 staff in offices in Dublin, Luxembourg, Wexford and the US.

Ms Gorman will be chief operating officer, while the other executives will also take up the equivalent positions they held in PFPC. The team left the company after a disagreement about its future, which they believed should involve a greater presence in hedge funds.

The investment made by Bear Stearns and Ms Kehoe's team in Quintillion has not been disclosed but it is certain to run into millions. The firm has taken 15,000 sq ft of office space in City Quay, across the Liffey from the original IFSC site, and has bought in the licensed technology it needs to scale the business up rapidly. The City Quay offices can accommodate 140 staff.

Quintillion plans to reach its staffing complement within two to three years and expects to formally open for business in September. The company has no clients as yet, but it will pitch for international hedge fund business, mostly from US or UK-based promoters. The funds it wants to service will normally be listed on the stock exchange, but could be domiciled in financial centres such as the Cayman Islands or the British Virgin Islands. Industry figures show that Dublin funds companies now service more than $1,000 billion (€789 billion) in hedge fund assets. This represents slightly more than one-third of the global hedge fund market.