No one has done more to institutionalize the managed futures business than Stanley Fink, the guiding force behind the growth of Man Group into one of the world’s largest alternative investment firms. Fink entered the industry as a lawyer and accountant, but he had the vision to see that managed futures, if properly marketed and distributed, could become a mainstay in the investment portfolios of sophisticated investors. Since joining Man in 1987, he has been directly involved in a series of mergers and restructurings that transformed the company from an offshoot of the ED&F commodity brokerage into a money management firm with more than $60 billion in assets under management. Fink also had the vision to change the ownership structure of the company, overseeing the public offering of its shares in 1994. Among the firms that Man acquired along the way were Mint, AHL, Glenwood and RMF. While most alternative investment programs started with equity and bond strategies, Man started with managed futures products and only later began to blend them with other strategies. To this day managed futures remain one of the core engines of the group’s investment performance.
