HSBC Halbis has appointed Shameema Yousuf fund manager of its Commodities Alpha Fund, working alongside lead manager Per Tingberg in managing the discretionary futures fund.

Yousuf has more than 10 years of commodities experience, most recently as a self-employed consultant. She began her career at Rand Merchant Bank in South Africa as an investment portfolio analyst, subsequent holding commodity trading, analysis and marketing positions at Amiga International, Ronly Holdings, Mako Financial Markets and Fuerst Lawson.

”Shameema's experience in both the physical and the financial arena is a tremendous asset,” said Bill Maldonado, head of alternative investments at Halbis. “We are particularly excited by her grains expertise given the opportunities we see in the agricultural sectors.”

The US$55 million vehicle, which was launched in September 2006, is a long/short fundamentally-driven commodities hedge fund that invests across all commodity sectors using futures.

Maldonado said the fund differs from both systematic commodity trading advisor strategies that invest primarily based on price-based technical signals and active directional funds. Its sub-strategies include calendar spreads, intra-market spreads and some directional positions.

Halbis specializes in European equities, value-added fixed income, Asian and emerging market equities, and some alternative strategies. The firm managed assets of US$99.4 billion as of the end of last year.