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Bradley Saacks and Sawyer Click
2020-10-19T13:41:40Z
- Millennium Management, the massive hedge-fund manager founded by the billionaire Israel Englander more than 30 years ago, has a sprawling web of alumni who have gone on to found their own firms.
- According to a Business Insider review of LinkedIn, media reports, and industry sources, more than 70 former employees of Englander have launched their own funds across the globe.
- Englander's firm is unique because its internal portfolio managers can develop their own brands without leaving the firm.
- And unlike fellow multistrategy funds like Citadel, Millennium also has exclusive relationships with many external managers who have not worked at the firm previously.
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
One could argue that Millennium Management's greatest advantage over other hedge funds is its ability to keep talented people in-house.
The massive hedge fund, which manages about $46 billion in assets across hundreds of teams, has a unique structure that lets portfolio managers operate in independent silos.
The structure — which grants portfolio managers even more autonomy than fellow multistrategy funds, though with tight risk and loss parameters — helps billionaire founder Israel Englander convince staffers who might leave a more-traditional fund to stay in-house and recruit top talent into his firm.
For example, Neil Chriss, who was once Steve Cohen's top quantitative analyst and ran Hutchin Hill for many years, joined Millennium in 2018 to run Omnis Quantitative instead of starting his own fund. Sara Nainzadeh started her own fund, Centenus Global Management, in 2017 after working for Millennium for years and has since brought her fund back into Englander's firm.
Other internal brands for Millennium include names like Catapult Capital, Rockhopper Capital, Cannon Asset Management, and Blue Arrow Capital.
Read more: Billionaire Ken Griffin's Citadel has a sprawling alumni network of more than 80 hedge funds. Take a look at our exclusive list.
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There's also Englander's penchant to invest, both exclusively and alongside other limited partners, in external funds — firms and founders who are not included in the alumni list. The most famous example is Igor Tulchinsky, a former Millennium portfolio manager who founded WorldQuant and manages both Millennium money and external capital.
In September, Neville Shah, a former Citadel technology portfolio manager, got funding from Englander as an external manager to start Kodai Capital Management, while Bloomberg recently reported on an agreement Millennium reached with a Singapore fund called RV Capital Management in which the Asia-focused fund will manage the new assets in an exclusive separately managed account for Englander's investors.
Still, Millennium's decades-long success has created dozens of spin-offs from its ranks — more than 70 by Business Insider's count. Active firms include names like Corso Capital run by David Frank, LNZ Capital founded by Reza Hatefi, and Compass Rose Asset Management from Jason Roche.
While some might have received funding from Englander, the network of firms highlighted below operate independently of Millennium after working for the firm — or at a firm founded by an alumnus of Millennium — at some point in their careers. (Story continues below graphic.)
Izzy’s influence
Hedge-fund founders connected to Millennium
Active hedge fund
Inactive hedge fund
Dot size represents number of years active
Source: Business Insider
Chart: Sawyer Click/Business Insider
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The most notable was the most controversial: Michael Gelband's ExodusPoint Capital Management. Gelband, Millennium's former head of fixed income, resigned in 2017 after not being the heir apparent to take over the firm after Englander, Bloomberg reported at the time.
The name of his fund is a clear reference to leaving the firm, and he has steadily recruited talent from Millennium since he left, including his cofounder Hyung Soon Lee, who was the former head of equities at Millennium. Exodus set a record when it launched in 2018 with $8 billion in committed capital.
Search Business Insider's table below for founders who worked at Millennium. (The names are identical to the those in the above graphic.)
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