Nick Bird, former Macquarie Group Ltd. quantitative hedge fund chief, is launching a second European-focused vehicle through his OQ Funds Management. The Hong Kong-based quant veteran began testing computer models for the new fund in September and plans to open it to external clients in the fourth quarter, pending research and development progress.

Bird's renewed European ambitions come as OQ's assets topped $1 billion in 2025, five years after he founded the firm. His previous experience running a multibillion-dollar Asia-based quant hedge fund at Macquarie ended in 2018 when rapid expansion and excessive capital inflows contributed to its demise. The Australian quant specialist quietly started OQ in 2020, focusing on controlled growth without external investors for the first two years.

The European fund will initially accommodate up to $600 million in capital and operate with greater automation than OQ's Asia vehicle. Backtesting shows stronger results for the European strategy, requiring fewer than 10% of trades to involve human intervention compared to the Asia fund's 50% discretionary component. Bird aims to reduce human discretion to about 30% by mid-2026 as models become more sophisticated.