The London-based alternatives firm James Caird Asset Management has added Ian Newton and Matthew Addison to its investment team to bolster its expertise in special situations and catalyst-driven strategies – areas which the firm sees as key at this point of the financial recovery.

Both Newton and Addison join from Cheyne Capital, where they had worked on the special situations team. The former’s expertise centres on risk arbitrage and event-driven opportunities, while the latter, who became a partner at Cheyne in 2007, focuses on event-driven equities, merger arbitrage, and stressed/distressed debt strategies.

“JCAM is fortunate to be growing at this time as the available talent pool is deep. The availability of top quality analysts, managers and traders has never been higher. We believe that the nature of financial markets and the investment styles providing the most compelling investment opportunities have changed for the foreseeable future and we are reflecting that view in our investment team,” said John Demaine, a JCAM partner.

Other recent additions to JCAM’s London team include: Ali Satrap, a macro specialist who was latterly a partner at London Diversified; Harald Hendrikse, an equities specialist formerly with Bank of America Merrill Lynch, and Pieter Staelens, a high yield credit specialist who joined from CQS. Additionally, in another move out of Cheyne, Alastair Gilmour joined to focus on credit.

JCAM, which also has a New York base, currently has $2.5 billion of assets under management and a staff of 60.