The 20 Rising Stars of Fixed Income 2008

16. GRAHAM RENNISON Director and Head of Quantitative Credit Strategy Barclays Capital, London Age: 28 Education: St. John’s College, University of Cambridge (B.A. in Mathematics, Certificate of Advanced Studies in Mathematics) Mentors: Robert McAdie, Managing Director and Global Head of Credit Strategy, Barclays Capital; Visant Naik, Global Head of Quantitative Strategies, European Fixed Income, Lehman Brothers Rennison was promoted to director and head of quantitative credit strategy at Barclays Capital in March, overseeing a team of three publishing analysts that advise more than 30 hedge funds and bank proprietary teams on trading credit derivatives. His group seeks to differentiate itself from other credit strategy groups by filling the gap between traditional qualitative strategies and hardcore quantitative research, he noted. Rennison considers the establishment of the type of research he and his team practice to be his biggest accomplishment so far, but it also has been his greatest challenge. “A consistent challenge is convincing clients of our way of research because we don’t look at fundamentals,” he said. “We’re more focused on statistical relationships, so we are met by resistance from traditional investors and traders. It’s hard to convince them.” But he noted that the team’s strategy has started capturing the attention of hedge funds in New York and London through a combination of pervasiveness and the methodology’s positive track record. Rennison joined Barclays as an associate director in October 2005 from Lehman Brothers, where he was an associate in fixedincome quantitative research since the summer of 2001. He said he chose the field because he finds the complexity of the products appealing and his education pointed him in that direction. atives versus credit derivatives.“These products are pricing at different scenarios,” he said, noting that credit products reflect a recession while equity ones do not. “We will look at the difference between the two and try to make money as they reconverge. This should happen as the economy plays out.” As for himself, Rennison expects to continue to build out his niche at Barclays. In addition, he hopes to be able to apply his strategies to his bank’s proprietary trading group, which currently does not trade credit derivatives. 17. JAMES RICE Managing Director, Taxable Fixed Income D.A. Davidson & Co., Seattle Age: 45 Education: Brown University (B.A. in Electrical Engineering and Economics); University of Michigan (M.B.A.) Rice is the managing director of taxable fixed income for D.A. Davidson, a full-service brokerage and investment banking firm. As part of the firm’s institutional trading and sales group, he is responsible for helping investors determine which taxable fixed-income security best meets their portfolio management needs. According to Rice, fixed income is accessible to the general public, much in the same way that equities are, but investors don’t take advantage of that access. In fact, one of the biggest challenges facing the fixed-income market is convincing the average investor to conduct their own trades. “The perception that an individual can do their own equity trades but fixed income should be done via mutual funds is a perception that I think is incorrect,” MAY 2008 16 . GRAHAM RENNISON 22 FIXED INCOME RISING STARS Going forward, Rennison sees opportunities in cross-asset class investments, such as equity deriv-

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