Hedge fund Walleye is flourishing after cutting heads and hiring some new ones
Hedge fund Walleye has returned 11.4% this year so far, which is pretty good, but it returned 3.4% in August alone – which is pretty excellent. It was best-in-class, in fact.
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Bloomberg noted that the monthly result was ahead of its larger and longer established multi-strategy peers, including Citadel, Millennium, and Balyasny, among others.
Walleye has cut jobs twice this year already, once in March and once in August. In March, Bloomberg reported that the firm had cut its head of global macro and fixed income, Raj Sethi. The August cuts included the firm’s global head of equity capital markets, Michael Martin. It has since brought in Rory Murphy, a portfolio manager at Citadel, to head its global capital markets team.
While people have left, others have arrived. At least 10 new PMs have joined Walleye in the last six months, with over half of those coming from other multistrategy hedge funds including Millennium, Point72, and Verition.
Many are in equities. Akshat Goel joined from Millennium in August. Bryan Wren also joined in August from Surveyor Capital. Peter Horner joined from Citadel Securities and Jonathon Gordon joined from Millennium in July and June.
A slew of volatility traders also arrived. In June Walleye hired Rupert Graham, formerly WorldQuant’s head of options, and also former head of European options at Citadel securities, who joined Walleye as a (systematic) volatility PM in Zug. Atak Kara, a volatility trader, joined in May from Verition in London. Andrew Koh John, a former PM at wealth manager Adams Wealth Advisors, joined Walleye in Maryland as a volatility trader.
Walleye also accumulated quant PMs. Daniel Gershenson and Brad Lloyd joined the firm in July and May respectively, from Susquehanna International Group and Capstone, in New York and London, respectively. Gershenson joined the firm in New York, from Philadelphia, while Lloyd joined in London.
Travis McCormack joined in August from Citi in New York, where he spent 13 years trading high-yield credit.
The raft eye of new arrivals comes despite the difficulty of being a portfolio manager. Walleye founder and CIO Will England said last year that the role can be toxic.
Walleye did not respond to a request for comment.
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