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Seeking Alpha – If someone was asked to name a fund in the global macro game, undoubtedly Tudor Investment Corp or Moore Capital Management would be among the most frequent responses. The global macro strategy has fared well in the world of hedge funds. Paul Tudor Jones’ Tudor Investment Corp has earned an annualized return of greater than 20% over the span of two decades.
Louis Bacon’s of Moore Capital Management shares the same accolade. And, while they are both down this year, they have fared much better relative to many of their peers and the market indexes in general. Tudor’s flagship fund finds itself -5% for the year, while Moore was -2.9% year-to-date through November as we noted in our November hedge fund performance update.
But, in a never-ending quest for outperformance, Tudor and Bacon want more. And, in order to accomplish that, they see it fit to return to their roots.
West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.net) – Derivatives exchange group CME has hired Mark H. Thompson Jr. as Director of hedge funds. Thompson, 37, will be responsible for serving as the company’s primary liaison to the East Coast hedge fund community and developing hedge fund business within the region across all CME Group product lines. He will be based out of New York and will report to Tina Lemieux, Managing Director of hedge funds and broker services.
Thompson joins CME Group from UBS Securities LLC where he most recently served as a member of the macro/cross asset sales team. In this role, he was responsible for serving as the single point of contact for macro, long/short, transition and asset managers for all derivatives and cash products and performing cross-asset idea generation and research for clients. He also served as a member of the bank’s global futures and options sales team. His background also includes operations and analyst roles with Moore Capital Management and Banque Paribas.
CME Group is the world’s largest and most diverse derivatives exchange. Building on the heritage of CME, CBOT and NYMEX, CME Group serves the risk management needs of customers around the globe. As an international marketplace, CME Group brings buyers and sellers together on the CME Globex electronic trading platform and on trading floors in Chicago and New York.
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Bloomberg – Moore Capital Management LLC, founded by Louis Bacon almost two decades ago, tapped Greg Coffey, former GLG Partners Inc.’s top-performing money manager, to be co-chief investment officer of Moore’s European business.
Coffey, 37, will join London-based Moore Europe Capital Management LLP with a 12-person team. Eric Dannheim, a senior member of that team will become chief operating officer of Moore Europe.
“Greg Coffey is one of the most impressive trading professionals operating anywhere in the world today,” said Bacon in a statement announcing the hires. “I have known Greg for a number of years and we have similar views with respect to markets and investment decisions,” he said.
Bacon, 52, has been the sole chief investment officer for the New York-based firm since he started it in 1990. A so-called macro investor — chasing macroeconomic trends by trading stocks, bonds, currencies and commodities — he’s been adding employees and attracting capital this year even as other funds have been firing personnel and facing client withdrawals in the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.
New York (HedgeCo.Net) – The British Financial Services Authority has imposed a fine on Steven Harrison for about $93,000 after accusing him of market abuse. Harrison will not be allowed to work as a trader for the next 12 months.
According to the allegations made by the FSA, Harrison told a co-worker at the Moore Credit Fund to purchase 2 million 10.5 percent senior notes in chemical company Rhodia SA, after having received insider information from members at Credit Suisse. Harrison was contacted in September 2006 by Credit Suisse to help them establish pricing for Rhodia’s bonds.
Knowing that Rhodia would be seeking board approval for its refinancing, Harrison made the order. The fund proceeded to make about $63,000 off that knowledge, though the FSA is not condemning the actions of Credit Suisse.
The FSA also acknowledged that Harrison did not make a personal profit from those trades. Harrison worked for Moore Europe Capital Management; a subsidiary of New-York based Moore Capital Management.
Moore Capital has a long standing reputation in the states for the global-macro strategies they employ, while investing in stocks, bonds and currencies. Founded by U.S. billionaire Louis Bacon in 1989, Moore Capital manages an estimated $15 billion in assets.
This is the latest in a string of attempts by the FSA to further probe hedge funds, after passing two new rules this summer requiring disclosure about shorting stocks and regarding derivatives.
Julie Scuderi Senior Editor for HedgeCo.Net Email: julie@hedgeco.net
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Bloomberg – Citadel Investment Group LLC, the Chicago-based asset-management firm founded by Kenneth Griffin, is seeking about $1 billion for a new global macro hedge fund, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.
The fund is set to be managed in London by Kaveh Alamouti, 54, whom Citadel hired this year from New York-based Moore Capital Management LLC, according to the person, who asked not to be identified because the plans are private. Citadel oversees $20 billion.
Macro funds, which attempt to profit from broad economic trends by trading stocks, bonds, currencies and commodities, gained an average of 3.7 percent this year through July, according to data compiled by Chicago-based Hedge Fund Research Inc. All funds lost an average of 3.4 percent.
"Citadel is as good as they get,” said Tammer Kamel, president of Toronto-based Iluka Consulting Group Ltd., which advises clients on investing in hedge funds. “They have a reputation that will ease the current difficulties that hedge funds face in raising capital.”
Bloomberg – Stanley Shopkorn, a former head of equities trading at Louis Bacon’s Moore Capital Management LLC, plans to open a global stocks hedge fund, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter.
Hilltop Park Fund LP, based in New York, is scheduled to start trading Oct. 1, said the person, who asked not to be named because the fund is private. Shopkorn declined to comment.
Shopkorn, 65, has managed money for wealthy clients since leaving New York-based Moore Capital in 2002. Bacon hired him in 1996 to build the firm’s equities business. Before that, Shopkorn ran hedge fund Ethos Capital LP and was a vice chairman at Salomon Brothers.
“It’s not the best of times to start a new fund,” said Graziano Lusenti, founder of Nyon, Switzerland-based Lusenti Partners LLC, an investment adviser. “Investors have become more adverse to allocating capital to hedge funds given how their performance hasn’t been overwhelming this year.”
