Morgan Stanley's Wisniewski quits to join hedge fund

Morgan Stanley's veteran head of European foreign exchange and emerging markets trading has left to join BlueCrest Capital Management, becoming the latest senior Morgan Stanley trader to join a hedge fund this year.

Marcin Wiszniewski, who has worked at Morgan Stanley for 14 years, has joined the $18.3bn (€13.5bn) London hedge fund as a portfolio manager on its $500m BlueCrest Emerging Markets Fund. He will join on May 10.

Wisniewski ran the desk since July 2008 when previous co-heads Bart Turtelboom and Karim Abdel-Motall were hired by London hedge fund firm GLG Partners to help replace Greg Coffey, who had joined Moore Capital.

Wiszniewski has been replaced at Morgan Stanley by Chris Nicoll, who has rejoined the bank as co-head of foreign exchange and emerging markets trading in Europe, following a two-year stint at $14.6bn hedge fund firm Moore Capital. Nicoll left Morgan Stanley for Moore Capital in July 2008 when he was head of European spot foreign exchange trading.

His new fellow co-head is Andrew Millward, who has been promoted after coming onboard earlier this year from JPMorgan. Nicoll and Millward report to Steve Mettler, global head of foreign exchange and emerging markets, and Rob Rooney, global head of interest rate, currency and credit.

Wiszniewski is the fourth senior trader to leave Morgan Stanley for a hedge fund this year, as remuneration and propietary trading comes under regulatory scrutiny, and some individuals seek the relative autonomy of a hedge fund compared to a large bank.

Eric Cole, who ran Morgan Stanley’s distressed sales, trading and research operation, is moving to Appaloosa Management, David Tepper's New Jersey firm that netted $7bn in 2009 for betting on battered financial shares. Morgan Stanley mortgage trader Ahsim Khan is set to join Brevan Howard, Europe's largest hedge fund firm, next month. He followed Morgan Stanley propietary trader Geoffroy Houlot, who joined the $30bn London firm in January.

BlueCrest has meanwhile seen assets grow almost 10% this year to $18.3bn on March 1 from $16.75bn at the end of 2009. It has benefited from inflows as investors put money back to work with established, blue-chip firms.

BlueCrest's largest fund, the systematic BlueTrend fund, which uses computer-driven models and manages over $9bn, returned 43% in 2008, when many of its peers took bad knocks to performance during the financial crisis, and was again up 4.3% last year, investors said.

Nicoll, Moore Capital and Brevan Howard declined to comment. BlueCrest confirmed the hire and declined to comment further. Morgan Stanley confirmed the appointments and declined to comment further.