Changes in Store for State Street Global

LONDON (HedgeWorld.com)–State Street Global Advisors shifted its U.K. chief investment officer, Christopher Woods, into the role of head of global hedge fund investment strategy, where he plans to revamp its hedge fund business.

Mr. Woods said he plans to work toward uniting State Street Global’s different hedge fund approaches into a single operation and perhaps toward creating new products combining them. “The idea is to bring the various absolute return efforts together,” Mr. Woods said. State Street will then be able to offer them in concert to interested investors, such as hedge funds of funds, offshore investors and institutional investors, he said.

Most of State Street’s U.K. hedge funds are in market neutral strategies, but the firm uses a number of styles that are hedge fund-friendly, such as currency overlay, fixed income and mortgage-backed securities, he said. They could be bundled easily into a single multi-strategy fund, Mr. Woods said. There are no immediate plans to hire more people to work in the hedge fund area, but that could change over time, he said.