Professional services firm Kinetic Partners has strengthened its Cayman Islands team with the relocation of two experts in forensic accounting, litigation support and hedge fund domicile and restructuring work, bringing the total to seven.

Nick Matthews, a member in Kinetic Partners’ London office since 2006, will be based in Cayman from October 2008, working alongside Geoff Varga on forensic accounting, corporate recovery and hedge fund liquidations. His experience has centred primarily on the financial services sector, assisting clients with financial crime issues. He has led major investigations, anti-money laundering and litigation support projects,drawing upon both UK and multinational teams.

Mr Matthews is joined by Malin Nilsson, a consultant at Kinetic Partners in London, who will also focus on forensic and corporate recovery engagements. She joined Kinetic as a consultant in 2007 to focus on forensic and litigation support, risk management and regulatory consulting. She has worked on a number of expert witness reports involving hedge funds, as well as regulatory investigations, reviewing firms’ governance and risk management frameworks.

The two will also work alongside Mark Longbottom, a senior consultant who joined Kinetic Partners’ Cayman corporate recovery team in March 2008 after a long career with BDO’s restructuring practices in London and Hong Kong, and Camele Burke, who joined Kinetic in May 2008 having previously been with KPMG’s Cayman liquidation group.

Geoff Varga, who heads Kinetic’s restructuring, corporate recovery and forensic services in Cayman, said: “The Cayman Islands are home to a majority of the world’s hedge funds. In the current financial crisis, many of these funds are likely to be suffering from poor performance and a higher incidence of redemption requests. It is likely that these effects will lead to a considerable number of hedge fund failures, thereby bringing on a high demand from hedge fund investors, managers and others, for recovery, liquidation, litigation and restructuring services.”

Kinetic Partners’ areas of expertise include audit and assurance, tax, regulatory compliance and consulting, corporate recovery and finance, and forensic investigations on behalf of both traditional and alternative investment managers.