Fink's ISAM doubles assets to $1bn The hedge fund launched by Lord Fink, the former chief executive of Man Group, has seen its assets double to $1bn in the past 12 months in spite of difficult markets. Mayfair-based ISAM has poached Darren Upton, the former head of trading research at AHL, Man's flagship computer-driven fund, to be its head of research, according to people familiar with the matter. Mr Upton began this month at ISAM, where he will oversee developments of its computer-driven flagship fund, which follows a version of AHL's "trend-following" strategy. Both funds aim to spot and ride price trends in futures markets, betting on dozens - if not hundreds - of different contracts at the same time to diversify their risks. Such trend-following strategies have not fared well thanks mainly to unusual levels of political intervention in markets and the "risk on, risk off" investor behaviour it has caused. Trend followers lost money in 2009 and 2011, according to Hedge Fund Research. The average trend-following hedge fund is up 2.9 per cent so far this year, beating the average hedge fund's performance for the industry as a whole of 2.5 per cent. ISAM's fund is down 3.3 per cent so far this year. The hedge fund was founded in 2007 by Stanley Fink, a prominent donor to the Conservative party who was made a life peer in 2011. Other founders include Lord Levy, the Labour party's former fundraising chief. The fund initially struggled to raise assets. A gold fund set up by ISAM was shut down, and it was only after a tie-up with veteran hedge fund manager Larry Hite in 2010, and key hires from Man, that ISAM began to raise more substantial money. ISAM's rise in assets under management contrasts with the fortunes of Man. The world's second-largest hedge fund manager by assets fell out of the FTSE 100 last month after its share price fell over the year.