One year ago
»» Former SAC Capital Advisors quant chief Neil Chriss began marketing his Hutchin Multi-Strategy fund to outside investors for the first time. The strategy had launched in July 2008 with $300 million from the Meritage Fund, Renaissance Technologies founder Jim Simons’ family office, and managed money for several Renaissance Technologies partners. It gained 13% in 2008 and 17% in 2009.
Given inflows and a 7% gain in 2010, the firm managed $1.4 billion as of mid-February 2011. Hutchin Hill continues to expand and is seeking to hire a director of compliance and up to four portfolio managers.
»» Following a strong year in 2009, Jacob Gottlieb’s Visium Asset Management started 2010 with a bang. The Visium Balanced Fund, a global healthcare strategy, was up 4.75% in January 2010 after rising 21.99% in 2009.
Visium continued its hot streak throughout 2010, with the Balanced Fund gaining 22.44%, performance that earned the fund a nomination at the sixth annual AR Awards. The firm continues to outperform: Visium Balanced was up 2.39% in January against a rise of 0.70% for the AR U.S. Equity Index.
Five years ago
»» Conducting an interview with the son of Alfred Winslow Jones, inventor of the modern hedge fund, revealed some lesser-known facts about the financial pioneer. Not only was Jones a diplomat, journalist and sociologist—gaps in his background and a romance with an anti-Nazi anti-communist resistance fighter have suggested to some that he might have been a spy for the U.S. government during World War II.
Jones, who passed away in 1989, would doubtless have a lot to say about the structure of the industry he helped establish. “The first thing Alfred would say about hedge fund managers today is that they are not hedged,” noted Jones’s successor and son-in-law Robert Burch III when interviewed about Jones for AR’s Hall of Fame. “The word is being abominated.”
