Man Group - History

History

The company was founded in 1783, by James Man, a barrel maker. The following year the company secured the contract to supply the Royal Navy with the rum for its daily “rum tot”, a tradition under which all sailors were allocated a daily ration of rum. (This tradition continued until 1970, with Man holding the contract throughout the entire period.) In 1860 Edward Desborough Man and Fredrick Man (grandsons of James Man) gave their initials to the name of the company, ED & F Man. Today, ED & F Man operates separately as a commodities trading business.

The company moved into rum and sugar broking, and then later expanded into other commodities such as coffee and cocoa. Throughout the nineteenth century and into the twentieth, financial exchanges became established for hedging commodity exposures and grew rapidly over the ensuing decades. Man became a major market participant; and the firm’s twentieth century partners established the company as a broker to third parties. The physical commodity exchanges, where much of the world’s trading was done were also changing significantly. Increasingly, throughout the 1970s, financial instruments were traded, bringing new participants and increased volumes. Man was a broker to some of these traders, many of whom were trying to use the markets to make a return on price movements, rather than simply attempting to protect themselves against the uncertainties inherent to trading. Man became a partner in 1983 with one of these new money management firms, Mint, which was based in New Jersey.

This venture prompted a move into financial services, which the company increasingly concentrated on. In 2000, the commodity trading companies went private with the result that Man became exclusively a financial services company. The demerger and flotation of its brokerage business renamed as MF Global on the New York stock exchange in 2007 moved the company into its present form, as an investment management business, within the alternative (sometimes called “non-traditional”) fund management industry, principally hedge funds. According to Institutional Investor magazine, its hedge funds have a combined US$54.2 billion in assets under management.

On 17 May 2010, the company announced the acquisition of the New York listed hedge fund GLG Partners for US$1.6 billion. GLG’s top executives, Noam Gottesman, Emmanuel Roman and Pierre Lagrange all received shares for their stakes in GLG, subject to a three year lock-in. Roman was subsequently named as chief operating officer of the combined entity. As of 30 September 2010 the Man Group had US$63 billion of Assets Under Management. On Tuesday 22 March 2011 – Man Group announced it was selling its stake in Bluecrest Group making a £250 million profit.