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| 10. Israel (Izzy) Englander / $410 million | ||
| Title: Founder, chairman and chief executive officerFirm: Millennium Management (New York)Age: 682016 Rank: No. 102016 Earnings: $410 million2015 Rank: No. 52015 Earnings: $1.15 billionYears on list: 15 | Source of 2016 earnings: Small gains in strategies other than fundamental long-short equitiesEducation: BS in finance, New York University, 1970 | |
By several measures, last year was rough for Izzy Englander. His firm’s overall 3 percent gain was its worst performance since 2008, when his multistrategy funds, Millennium International and Millennium USA, suffered small losses. (That was their only down year since the firm’s launch in 1989.) Even so, Englander ended up earning $410 million in 2016.
Last year Millennium was most hurt by the flattish performance in its fundamental long-short book, which receives the biggest allocation. At the beginning of this year, Englander lost his star fixed-income manager when Michael Gelband left the firm — a move that reportedly surprised Englander. Gelband, once Lehman Brothers Holdings’ head of capital markets, joined Millennium in late 2008, and Englander cherished him; he once joked that he didn’t want Gelband’s name and accomplishments mentioned in an article for fear Millennium’s competitors might snatch him away. In early May, Millennium named Citigroup’s Mark Tsesarsky co-head of its fixed-income and commodities business. In February, the firm brought in Peter Santoro to head up global equities trading — the same role he previously held at Morgan Stanley.
Millennium is one of the more consistent hedge fund firms, avoiding large swings in performance — a major reason it has grown assets and avoided the rash of redemptions that many other old-line firms of Englander’s generation are experiencing. Assets under management stand at more than $34 billion, making Millennium the seventh-largest hedge fund firm in the world.
Englander and his wife, Caryl, a photographer, regularly donate money to a wide variety of Jewish organizations, religious schools, and hospitals; they are fixtures on the ARTnews top 200 art collectors list, credited with funding exhibitions at the Guggenheim Museum and the Edward Steichen archive at the Museum of Modern Art.
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