The advantages - and disadvantages - of working for Dymon Asia
If you’re going to work for Dymon Asia Capital – the Singaporean hedge fund growing across Asia – then you should be aware of a few things. The most important is, by far, to not stop making money.
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In article about Dymon's chief investment officer and founder Danny Yong, for Bloomberg earlier this week, a spokesperson for the fund said that Dymon hadn’t lost a single profitable portfolio manager (PM) to poaching within the last two years. That suggest that portfolio managers who left Dymon in the last two years either retired – or were unprofitable.
This may not be the case. In fact, most of the PMs we’ve spotted leaving Dymon in the last few years have found new jobs pretty easily. There is no implication that they have lost money.
Various Dymon alumni have, for example, joined major rival funds like Brevan Howard. Others have gone to New York hedge funds, or to Louis Dreyfus.
Leaving Dymon may offer the opportunity to work at major names elsewhere. Staying isn't such a bad option, though. Bloomberg notes Dymon’s social media posts show employees given the opportunity to plant trees, clean dog poo, and even go kayaking. Average pay of $680k on Levels.fyi doesn't look discouraging, either.
A more genuine advantage is a higher degree of autonomy than most other global funds can offer their APAC offices. Dymon’s Asian focus and footprint means that big, risk-taking (and profit-producing) positions can be taken in the region without needing to call New York or London for approval – and potentially having to wait until they wake up.
Dymon's success last year - returning 17% - was ahead of rival funds such as Millennium's and Balyasny's and it powered extensive hiring. The fund has started this year strong, and is hiring still. But it almost ended six years ago, when Danny Yong faced three years of consecutive losses. Bloomberg said the fund survived when he stepped away from the trading desk and quarterbacked his portfolio managers' calls instead. “It took me three years of eating humble pie, working our ass off with nothing to show," Yong told Bloomberg.
Dymon Asia did not respond to a request for comment.
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