Fund Management

Philip Best is the Chairman of QUAERO CAPITAL’s Board. He is also a Founding Partner of the company and a Portfolio Manager.

Philip started his career as a fund manager at Warburg Investment Management in 1983 initially as a trainee, then managing the Mercury European Income Fund. In 1987, he joined Enskilda Securities as a broker specialising in European small cap companies. In 1994 he established and ran the Paris office of The Europe Company Limited, a specialist research-driven European small cap brokerage (purchased by Jefferies & Co in 2000).

In 2003, Philip launched The Argonaut Fund, a fund he still manages today.

Philip graduated from Oxford University. He worked in London and Paris before he settled in Geneva. He is bilingual in English and French.

Adrian Bignell joined Quaero Capital LLP as senior research analyst in May 2021.

Previously, Adrian looked after the European smaller company funds at Invesco, started in 2003.

After successfully turning around the performance of the small caps, in 2008 he launched and ran the all-cap Invesco European Opportunities fund. On the back of strong performance, he had a Citywire AAA rating, won the ‚best fund over 3 years‘ Lipper award in 2012 and was mentioned in the Tilney Bestinvest ‚Top 100 UK Managers‘ in 2014 and 2015.

Prior to Invesco, after graduating from St Andrews University where he read French, Adrian worked at Cazenove where he ran the European smaller company fund and in 2001 was made partner.

He holds an MA (Honours) in French from St Andrews University.

Edouard begann seine berufliche Laufbahn 1972 als Finanzanalyst und schlug eine umfangreiche Karriere in der institutionellen Vermögensverwaltung und im Research ein. Ab 1981 verwaltete er einen Rentenfonds für eine Tochterbank der UBS-Gruppe. 1986 wechselte er zu Cursitor Ltd. in London, einem unabhängigen Vermögensverwalter, wo er auf der Grundlage des hauseigenen Makro-Research Investmentfonds entwickelte und verwaltete.

Durch den Aufbau von Fachwissen im Bereich der makroökonomischen Analyse verwaltet er seit über 30 Jahren Anleihenfonds und erhielt von Standard & Poor’s Auszeichnungen für herausragende Leistungen über 3, 5 und 10 Jahre. Von 2004 bis 2021 war Edouard Mitglied des Verwaltungsrats und des Prüfungs- und dann des Governance-Ausschusses der Wendel-Gruppe (Frankreich), einer öffentlichen Investmentgesellschaft mit einem Bruttovermögen von über 10 Milliarden Euro, die als aktiver Aktionär mit langfristiger Perspektive große Beteiligungen eingeht. In diese Funktion brachte er seine ausgeprägten makroökonomischen Analysefähigkeiten und seine Erfahrung auf den Finanzmärkten ein.

Edouard ist Absolvent der ESCP, Ecole Supérieure de Commerce de Paris.

Eric Daniel joined Quaero Capital LLP in 2020 and manages QUAERO CAPITAL Global Convertible Bonds investment strategy.

Prior to joining QUAERO CAPITAL, Eric was a portfolio manager for Tyndaris. Eric’s career in convertibles bonds spans over 22 years across a number of tier-1 global investment banks, including Merrill Lynch and Deutsche Bank. Eric opened the KBC Financial Products continental Europe branch in 2000. Eric was Head of Equity Derivatives and Convertibles Bonds sales for Citigroup (Paris) covering the largest global convertible bonds accounts for the bank until December 2014.

He started his career as a futures and equity derivatives trader at Bacot Allain Warburg from 1991 to 1994 and managed a CTA fund at Capital Fund Management in Paris until 1997.

Eric graduated from the French Business School ESC Le Havre in Business & Economics with a specialization in Finance.

Mark Ebert joined Quaero Capital SA in 2012 and manages the Infrastructure Securities Fund.

Mark began his career with Price Waterhouse in Chicago and London. He then joined Citicorp Investment Bank – London in the Corporate Finance / M&A Department responsible for transatlantic M&A advisory. He joined UBS in London as Head of European M&A, becoming Senior Managing Director – Global Co-ordinator of M&A, based in Zurich. He became co-head of Panmure Gordon in London, an Institutional Broker and Corporate Finance Adviser focussed on UK & European high growth sectors.

He then pursued his career as a Member of the Executive Committee and Head of Lombard Odier’s Investment Banking Division in Geneva.  He was responsible for the bank’s Private Equity activities as well as Securities Trading, Equity Brokerage, and M&A. He then founded Quadrum Partners in Zurich, providing corporate finance advisory services to European Institutional Investment Managers.

He later joined the Fortune Group, London, as Chairman.  Fortune advised institutional investors on hedge fund strategies and ran several Hedge Funds of Funds. After Close Brothers acquired Fortune, he became a Managing Director and was responsible for developing Close’s Real Asset investment strategy, before joining QUAERO CAPITAL.

Mark’s degrees inlcude BSc, Gdip, and MSc.  He qualified as a Certified Public Accountant.

David Giboudeau joined Quaero Capital SA in 2021 as Portfolio Manager for the Infrastructure Securities fund managed by Mark Ebert.

He previously worked at Auris Gestion in Paris for seven years as Equity Analyst and then became Portfolio Manager. He managed several European and international equities funds for both wealth managers and institutional clients.

David graduated from Neoma Business School, holds a master’s degree in Economics from Paris X University and is a CFA charter holder.

Olivier Ken kam 2022 als Portfoliomanager zu Quaero Capital (France) SAS.

Er begann seine Karriere 1996 bei der Caisse des dépôts et consignations in Paris und wechselte dann als Börsenmakler zu The Europe Company.

Von 2000 bis 2010 arbeitete er für Jefferies in Paris, wo er den Bereich „Cleantechnology“ aufbaute.

Im Jahr 2010 wechselte er zu Ecofi Investment, einem Unternehmen der Credit Cooperatif, als Manager für thematische Fonds. Er war verantwortlich für den europäischen Megatrend-Fonds Ecofi trajectoires durables und den Greenfind-Fonds Ecofi Agir pour le climat.

Olivier hat einen Master in Finanzen von der Universität Paris-Nanterre und ist Mitglied der Société Française des Analystes Financiers.

Frédéric Loisel joined the Fixed income team of Quaero Capital (France) SAS in 2021.

Frédéric was an investment banker for 25 years.

From 2006 to 2018, he was Managing Director in charge of the Solutions Sales Team at Deutsche Bank in Paris.

Previously, he was Head of Institutional Sales at IXIS CIB after having been Sales Manager France at DZ Bank in Frankfurt as well as Market Economist and Money Trader at Louis Dreyfus Finance.

Frédéric Loisel has graduated from Sciences Po Paris and holds a degree in History.

Xavier Nicolas joined Quaero Capital France (SAS) in 2021 and manages the Fixed income strategies.

Xavier has 30 years of experience in managing Rates and Credit portfolios.

From 2001 to 2018, he was responsible for mandates Private Debt team at Aviva Investors France and Head of the fixed income UCITS funds.

Previously, he was Lead Manager of AFER’s bond portfolio after having managed bond and convertible funds for various management companies.

Xavier Nicolas holds a DEA in Econometrics from the University of Paris 1.

Marc Saint John Webb joined Quaero Capital SA in 2006 as portfolio manager.

He started investing in European equities in 1987, when he joined Warburg Securities in Paris. He subsequently worked as a research analyst for Schelcher Prince before moving on to small cap stock picking at Oddo. In 1997, he joined CCF Elysées Bourse as Head of the Small Caps Division, where he developed a new research product dedicated to smaller companies. He oversaw a number of IPOs and raised further capital for listed smaller companies. In 2001, he co-founded IXIS-Rothschild Midcaps, a Paris-based joint venture specialising in corporate brokerage and research on French mid-sized companies.

Marc studied at Aston Business School in England, the Complutense University of Madrid in Spain and INSEAD in France. He holds the diploma of the SFAF (the French Society of Financial Analysts).

Philippe Scemama joined the Fixed income team of Quaero Capital (France) SAS in 2021.

Philippe was an investment banker for 25 years.

From 2005 to 2017, he was Co-Head of Institutional Investor Solutions at Goldman Sachs in London and Paris.

Previously, he was Head of Central Banks and Supranational Investors at IXIS CIB after having been Head of Hedge Funds Sales at CIC’s European Union and Auditor in charge of financial institutions at Ernst & Young.

Philippe Scemama is a graduate of HEC.

Laurent Stöckli joined Quaero Capital SA in August 2017 in the role of Research Analyst. He is Senior Reasearch Analyst.

He started his career working for a Swiss-based Hedge fund as research analyst and then Portfolio manager. Several years later, he joined the international family office, Stanhope Capital, with responsibility for the portfolio management in Geneva for Ultra High Net Worth Individual clients.

Laurent holds a Bachelor in Business Administration from the University of Applied Sciences Western Switzerland.

Louis-Marie Toupet joined Quaero Capital (France) SAS in Paris in 2018 as Portfolio Manager within the Multi-Assets team.

He previously worked in the Risk Department at DNCA Finance in Luxembourg as assistant risk manager.

He holds a Master’s degree in Economic and Financial Engineering from the University of Rennes 1, with a specialisation in Data Science.

Martina Turner joined Quaero Capital (France) SAS in 2017 as a Portfolio Manager.

Martina has 30 years of experience in European financial markets. She is the founder of the Accessible Clean Energy investment strategy.

Following extensive experience acquired at Tier-1 financial institutions in equities, business development, and clean energy investments, Martina received training in solar technology and materials ‘science’ at MIT seminars and in microcredit for solar installation at Grameen Bank.

Subsequently, Martina developed an investment strategy to generate profitable returns investing in companies focused on development, production and sale of technologies that enable the global dissemination of clean energy from the developed world to the most populated and most remote regions. After over 2 years of successful tracking, the investment model became the strategy of a structured fund, anchored by a pension fund.

She holds a Master of Science from the Faculty of Economics of the London School of Economics. She is a member of the French Analyst Society.