Balyasny Hedge Fund Is Said to Lose About 10 Macro Traders

Balyasny’s hedge fund firm saw 10 macro traders leave last week as two of its main funds lost money this year.

02 Apr 2018, 06:31 PM IST

Balyasny Hedge Fund Is Said to Lose About 10 Macro Traders

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(Bloomberg) -- Dmitry Balyasny’s hedge fund firm saw about 10 macro traders leave last week as two of its main multistrategy funds lost money this year and it moved to reduce costs.

Some employees were cut from Balyasny Asset Management’s Anthem training program, including its head, Mitesh Parikh, said people with knowledge of the matter. Anthem was started in 2016 for younger managers, who were given small pools of capital to invest, and has made money since inception, the people said.

Portfolio managers Chris Langman, who was based in London, and Rahul Rathore, who was in New York, also left the firm, the people said. They were not part of the training program.

The moves follow the hiring of former Citadel trader Tim Wilkinson earlier this year as head of macro investing in London. The cuts are part of a shift toward employing fewer managers who can run larger pools of money, the people said. Chicago-based Balyasny, which oversees almost $13 billion, said it hired Wilkinson to “help scale the business” in London, according to a letter sent to investors at the time.

Earlier this month two other portfolio managers left the firm. London-based Peter Williams is joining Point72 Asset Management, and New York-based Hui Huang Lee was hired by ExodusPoint Capital Management, a new firm founded by Michael Gelband.

The former portfolio managers all declined to comment. Scott Schroeder, who helped Balyasny found the firm in 2001, did not reply to an email and call seeking comment.

The Atlas Enhanced fund fell 2.6 percent this year through March 16, according to an investor document, while the Atlas Global Investments fund declined 1.8 percent. The smaller Atlas Fundamental Trading fund, managed by Balyasny himself, fell 6.4 percent.

To contact the reporters on this story: Bei Hu in Hong Kong at bhu5@bloomberg.net, Kristy Westgard in New York at kwestgard1@bloomberg.net, Katherine Burton in New York at kburton@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Sree Vidya Bhaktavatsalam at sbhaktavatsa@bloomberg.net, Margaret Collins at mcollins45@bloomberg.net, Vincent Bielski, Melissa Karsh