Funds Hub

Getting information out of secretive hedge fund firm TCI (The Children’s Investment fund) can be a difficult task — just ask the Treasury Select Committee, whose tough questioning of founder Chris Hohn in January was met with short responses.

However, it appears the activist firm has been on the move, hiring Masroor Siddiqui, head of the European business at Canyon Capital.

The hire comes after a tough period for TCI, as for most event-driven funds.

It reportedly suffered performance losses of around 43 percent in 2008 in falling stock markets, while in January Reuters revealed partner and co-founder Patrick Degorce had left.

However, the environment for the likes of TCI is definitely getting easier and performance could again soon be on the up – the FTSE is up by more than a quarter since early March, while event-driven funds are in positive territory year-to-date.

Nevertheless, conditions as they were around the peak of the bull market, when TCI’s criticism of the “terrible shareholder return” helped push ABN Amro into sale talks, could be some years away yet.