Man Group Names Emmanuel Roman CEO

an Group named Emmanuel Roman, its president and chief operating officer, to succeed Chief Executive Peter Clarke when he retires at the end of February.

The management change will bring to an end Mr. Clarke's nearly six-year stint in charge of the world's second-largest hedge-fund manager by assets, which in recent years has seen its share price drop and disenchanted investors withdraw billons of dollars.

Mr. Clarke has come under increasing pressure from investors to step down this year, during which time Man Group's share price has fallen 40%, pushing it out of the U.K.'s FTSE 100 index in June. Since Mr. Clarke took the helm in March 2007, Man Group's share price has plunged 87% through Friday. On Monday, the shares jumped 5% on the change at the top.

That job fell instead to Mr. Roman, who joined Man Group in 2010 when it acquired rival fund manager GLG Partners, and was named to the company's executive board in May 2011. Mr. Roman had been joint CEO at GLG and, previously, was named a partner at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., where he had been global head of prime brokerage, a unit that provides services to hedge funds. He was regarded as a key architect of GLG's growth into one of Europe's largest and best-known hedge-fund companies with $20.2 billion in assets at the time of its acquisition by Man Group.

Man Group said Mr. Roman's appointment followed a "rigorous evaluation process" that assessed both internal and external candidates. The handover period will continue until Feb. 28, when the company expects to report its 2012 earnings. Mr. Clarke will retire as CEO and step down from Man Group's board that day.

This does not change the fundamentals of the business but could give the company a fresh start with investors," said Peter Lenardos, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets. He added that Mr. Roman's main challenges now are "regaining investor's confidence and improving investment performance."

One of the main criticism that analysts and investors have had of Mr. Clarke is that he didn't move decisively enough after the 2008 financial crisis to trim the company's costs in line with tougher market conditions for its funds. Man Group's assets under management have yet to surpass the peak hit in 2007, despite the acquisition of GLG and, earlier this year, FRM Holdings Ltd.