| Israel Englander (Bloomberg) |
Israel (Izzy) Englander’s New York–based Millennium Management and Old Greenwich, Connecticut–based WorldQuant plan to introduce a new quantitative equity long-short product sometime in the third quarter, according to knowledgeable sources.
It will be the first of what could be additional products generated by a joint venture between the two firms.
Little else is known about the new fund and how much money the two firms hope to raise. Millennium and WorldQuant each declined to comment.
Millennium is a multistrategy hedge fund firm which manages about $28 billion. The firm deploys about 170 manager teams, which operate independently, managing positions with strict oversight from a group including Englander that oversees risk management and allocates capital.
Millennium funds were up about 5.7 percent in the first quarter after posting gains exceeding 12 percent in 2014. Since the firm’s launch in 1989, Millennium has produced a 14.5 percent annualized return in its flagship fund.
WorldQuant is headed by Igor Tulchinsky, who ran a strategy for Millennium for 20 years. From 1995 through 2006, he served as a managing director at Millennium, where he built a statistical arbitrage group.
WorldQuant spun off from Millennium in 2007 and continued to exclusively manage capital for the larger firm.
The firm says on its website that it currently maintains a staff of more than 350 globally. In addition to Old Greenwich and New York, it has research offices in China, India, Israel, Russia, Taiwan and Thailand, plus a software research office in Vietnam.
WorldQuant draws on its employees, including mathematicians and computer scientists, “to discover market inefficiencies, operating inefficiencies and other sources of potential profit by maintaining a constant, keen focus on even the smallest opportunities,” it explains on its website.
“Through our process, WorldQuant seeks to thrive in ever-more complex and efficient markets,” it adds.
Before joining Millennium, Tulchinsky spent a little more than two years with Timber Hill/Interactive Brokers, doing research on equity strategies. Before that he was a member of the technical staff of Bell Laboratories.
