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Clive Capital
$85 Million
Chris Levett’s hedge fund firm is practically an overnight sensation. In its first full year of business, London-based Clive Capital soared 44 percent, after fees, trading everything from energy and metals to grains and vegetable oils.
Levett, 38, is a former top commodities trader at Louis Bacon’s Moore Capital Management, where he was no stranger to spectacular results, generating a 39 percent return in 2004, 47 percent in 2005 and 31 percent in 2006. Nearly half of his gains last year took place in October, perhaps the most volatile month in 2008 for the global markets in general. Early in the year he made money betting that energy and metals prices would rise; later he profited by betting that they would fall.
Successful as the bets were, Levett’s firm — like almost all hedge funds — absorbed some significant redemptions. Clive, which launched in November 2007, managed $2.5 billion at the start of this year, down $600 million from the end of 2008.
