Julian Barnett – Fund Manager

Julian joined Close Brothers in July 1999 as a graduate, after initially building the dealing and software systems he became the third member of a team managing a £250m concentrated UK equity portfolio. He was involved in asset allocation, portfolio management, stock analysis, trading and risk management. Julian was also responsible for the building of risk, quantitative and valuation screening models, which he continued to develop further at Polar Capital. He joined Polar Capital in June 2002 to co-manage the Polar Capital UK fund. He subsequently launched the Polar Capital Paragon Fund in April 2004. Julian is a CFA charterholder.

Julia Thompson – Analyst

Julia graduated from the University of Nottingham in 2001 with a First Class in BA Hons Economics with French. She completed the graduate scheme at Merrill Lynch in New York then joined the Research Sales team in London as a generalist within Pan-Europe. After 3 years Julia was promoted to the European Equity Derivatives team, where her client base was exclusively hedge funds. She formulated equity derivatives strategies to implement fundamental equity ideas. She gained her CFA charter in 2005, at which point she left Merrill Lynch to become an equity analyst at Fidelity in London where she covered the Diversified Financials sector until she left to join Polar in October 2007.

Matthew Joyce – Analyst

Matthew joined Polar Capital in September 2002 after graduating from Birbeck College, University of London with a BSc in Financial Economics. He initially worked in the operations department until September 2005 when he joined the UK team. He subsequently moved to the Global Opportunities team in July 2007.