Interview with Richard Bibb, CIO of AIMhedge Establishment
Eurekahedge
January 2010
AIMhedge is a managed futures/CTA fund based in Liechtenstein. AIMhedge started out as the semi-automised trading system of Holger Albers in the early 2000s that was fully systematised and started live trading in 2005. AIMhedge has gone on to win Best German Hedge Fund in 2008 and nominated in the top five for ‘The Best Hedge Fund over 3 Years’ by the Hedge Fund Review Magazine.
The growth of the firm has now attracted former employees of Man Group, including Richard Bibb to the team as CIO. Prior joining AIMhedge, Bibb had spent 12 years as one of the chief system developers at AHL where during his time, the firm’s AuM rose from US$300 million to over US$20 billion.
AIMhedge Global Diversified Fund is a systematic hedge fund focused on delivering absolute returns by investing in financial and commodities futures. The trading algorithm is based on a trend-following strategy with strict risk management rules, implemented on an automated basis. A broad diversification results from trading more than 60 futures markets worldwide. The fund has two currency share classes: US$ and €, with minimum investments of US$100,000 and €100,000, respectively. In addition, AIMhedge also offers managed accounts and structured products.
In 2008, the AIMHedge global hedge fund posted gains of 41.4% while all markets across the globe were going through drastic downturns. How do you explain this commendable outperformance?
2008 was in many ways a perfect storm for the finance industry and from the perspective of AIMhedge, it clearly demonstrated the fundamental advantages of systematic managed futures trading. Trading managed futures allowed us to take advantage of a large, diverse set of rising and falling markets. Additionally, because futures are exchange traded, our counter-party risk was kept to a minimum without introducing liquidity issues. During the year, almost all sectors contributed to our performance, with stock indices and industrials putting in very strong returns. For us, one of the key advantages of being 100% systematic is that emotion is taken out of the trading environment. Trading in chaotic times requires good, rational decisions to be made and systematic trading is based on solid research and pure data.
