MSN MoneyCentral- Renaissance Technologies, one of the world’s biggest and best performing hedge fund groups, plans to launch a managed futures fund with a capacity of $25bn, an unusual foray into aninvestment strategy that has been underperforming.
Renaissance was founded by former maths professor James Simons, last year the world’s most highly paid hedge fund manager, earning $1.7bn.
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The group’s flagship $6bn Medallion fund, which trades in a lot of futures, has been quickly overtaken in growth by its newer Renaissance Institutional Equities Fund, which was launched two years ago and trades only in stocks. The Institutional fund, which was designed to hold $100bn, already manages $26bn. It charges much lower fees than Medallion’s notoriously high 44 per cent performance fee, and was designed to provide lower volatility and a lower trading turnover, appealing to pension funds.
