Validus opens office in Toronto

Financial risk advisor Validus Risk Management has opened a new office in Toronto, the firm said in a statement.

Josh Macdonald, previously of Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, has joined as a financial risk management analyst, working closely with the London team in assessing currency exposures for new clients, according to sister publication Private Debt Investor. He will also take an active role in hedging strategy design.

Three more employees are expected to join Macdonald shortly. Directors Kevin Lester, Francois Scheepers and Haakon Blakstad will oversee the expansion of the North American office.

Blakstad, head of commercial development at the firm, commented that an increase in volatility in both currencies and commodities over the past nine months has led to high demand for independent market risk advice from funds and corporates in both Canada and the US.

“We decided to increase our presence in the region to better meet these demands, and this also constitutes a natural expansion of our fast-growing business,” Blakstad said.

UK-headquartered Validus designs and implements hedging strategies and deploys processes and technology solutions for managing, monitoring and reporting market risk. The firm specialises in currency, interest rate and commodity price risk. It works with SMEs as well as multinational corporations, pension funds, sovereign wealth funds and alternative investment funds with a combined assets under management of $700 billion.