Billionaire Chris Rokos Is Seeking $900 Million for New Hires

(Bloomberg) -- Billionaire Chris Rokos is seeking to raise as much as $900 million from investors for new portfolio managers he plans to hire this year.

Rokos Capital Management is adding a small number of employees for credit trading and for bets on energy and oil markets, and has begun discussions with potential investors to raise between $750 million and $900 million for the expansion, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. It will also strengthen emerging markets trading following the departure of senior money manager Borislav Vladimirov last year, the person said.

A spokesman for the London-based investment firm, which oversee about $8.2 billion, declined to comment.

Rokos, 48, is raising fresh money at a time when more macro managers are seeing performance improve, helped by rising volatility, trade disputes and a divergence in interest rates. Brevan Howard Asset Management, where Rokos made his name before starting his own firm, returned 12.3 percent last year for its best performance since 2009. Ray Dalio’s flagship hedge fund at Bridgewater Associates rose 14.6 percent.

Rokos -- whose wealth is estimated at $1.3 billion by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index -- had a modest year by comparison. Hit by a loss of just under 5 percent in December, his macro hedge fund erased most of the gains for the year to end up with a return of about 2 percent, the person said. The Rokos Global Macro Master Fund lost 3.4 percent in 2017.

Rokos co-founded Brevan Howard and made $4 billion for the firm from 2004 to 2012. He started his own firm in 2015 with initial capital from investors including Blackstone Group LP and raced ahead of Brevan Howard in terms of assets under management last year.

The firm raised $2 billion in additional capital in early 2017, after gaining 20 percent the prior year, and another roughly $800 million late that year.

To contact the reporter on this story: Nishant Kumar in London at nkumar173@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Sree Vidya Bhaktavatsalam at sbhaktavatsa@bloomberg.net, Christian Baumgaertel

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