JWM Partners LLC was a hedge fund started by John Meriwether after the collapse of Long-Term Capital Management (LTCM) in 1998. LTCM was one of the most spectacular failures of Wall Street, leading to a bailout of around $4 billion that was provided by a consortium of Wall Street banks. Meriwether started the company with initial capital of $250 million with loyal quants and traders like Victor Haghani, Larry Hilibrand, Dick Leahy, Arjun Krishnamachar and Eric Rosenfeld. As of April 2008, the company had around $1.6 billion in management. [1] Eric Rosenfeld left to start his own fund.
The funds posted gains for several years, but in the first quarter of 2008 posted losses, of 14% in the Global Macro Fund, and 31% in the flagship Relative Value Opportunity bond fund. [1] Together with redemptions, this cut the capital base significantly.
The fund claimed to use the same model as LTCM with more rigorous and better risk management. It also claimed a leverage ratio of 15 to 1.
On July 7, 2009, it was announced that the fund would be closed after suffering a loss of 44% in the main fund between September 2007 and February 2009. [2]
A hedge fund is a pooled investment fund that holds liquid assets and that makes use of complex trading and risk management techniques to improve investment performance and insulate returns from market risk. Among these portfolio techniques are short selling and the use of leverage and derivative instruments. In the United States, financial regulations require that hedge funds be marketed only to institutional investors and high-net-worth individuals.
Long-Term Capital Management L.P. (LTCM) was a highly leveraged hedge fund. In 1998, it received a $3.6 billion bailout from a group of 14 banks, in a deal brokered and put together by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
Myron Samuel Scholes is a Canadian–American financial economist. Scholes is the Frank E. Buck Professor of Finance, Emeritus, at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, Nobel Laureate in Economic Sciences, and co-originator of the Black–Scholes options pricing model. Scholes is currently the chairman of the Board of Economic Advisers of Stamos Capital Partners. Previously he served as the chairman of Platinum Grove Asset Management and on the Dimensional Fund Advisors board of directors, American Century Mutual Fund board of directors and the Cutwater Advisory Board. He was a principal and limited partner at Long-Term Capital Management (LTCM), a highly leveraged hedge fund that collapsed in 1998, and a managing director at Salomon Brothers. Other positions Scholes held include the Edward Eagle Brown Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago, senior research fellow at the Hoover Institution, director of the Center for Research in Security Prices, and professor of finance at MIT's Sloan School of Management. Scholes earned his PhD at the University of Chicago.
John William Meriwether is an American hedge fund executive.
Salomon Brothers, Inc., was an American multinational bulge bracket investment bank headquartered in New York City. It was one of the five largest investment banking enterprises in the United States and a very profitable firm on Wall Street during the 1980s and 1990s. Its CEO and chairman at that time, John Gutfreund, was nicknamed "the King of Wall Street".
Alfred Winslow Jones was an American investor, hedge fund manager, and sociologist. He is credited with forming the first modern hedge fund and is widely regarded as the "father of the hedge fund industry."
Soros Fund Management, LLC is a privately held American investment management firm. It is currently structured as a family office, but formerly as a hedge fund. The firm was founded in 1970 by George Soros and, in 2010, was reported to be one of the most profitable firms in the hedge fund industry, averaging a 20% annual rate of return over four decades. It is headquartered at 250 West 55th Street in New York. As of 2023, Soros Fund Management, LLC had $25 billion in AUM.
When Genius Failed: The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management is a book by Roger Lowenstein published by Random House on October 9, 2000. The book tells an unauthorized account of the creation, early success, abrupt collapse, and rushed bailout of Long-Term Capital Management (LTCM). LTCM was a tightly held American hedge fund founded in 1993 which commanded more than $100 billion in assets at its height, then collapsed abruptly in August and September 1998. Prompted by concerns about LTCM's thousands of derivative contracts, in order to avoid a panic by banks and investors worldwide, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York stepped in to organize a bailout with the various major banks at risk.
Citadel LLC is an American multinational hedge fund and financial services company. Founded in 1990 by Ken Griffin, it has more than $63 billion in assets under management as of June 2024. The company has over 2,800 employees, with corporate headquarters in Miami, Florida, and offices throughout North America, Asia, and Europe. Founder, CEO and Co-CIO Griffin owns approximately 85% of the firm. As of December 2022, Citadel is one of the most profitable hedge funds in the world, posting $74 billion in net gains since its inception in 1990, making it the most successful hedge fund in history, according to CNBC.
An alternative investment, also known as an alternative asset or alternative investment fund (AIF), is an investment in any asset class excluding capital stocks, bonds, and cash.
Victor Haghani is an Iranian-American founder of Elm Wealth, a research-driven wealth advisor and manager.
Chi-fu Huang is a private investor, retired hedge fund manager, and former finance academic. During his career, Huang has contributed to the theory of financial economics, having written on dynamic general equilibrium theory, intertemporal utility theory, and the theory of individual consumption and portfolio decisions.
David Wiley Mullins Jr. was an American economist who served as the 14th vice chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1991 to 1994. Prior to his term as vice chairman, Mullins served as a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, taking office in 1990. Before his appointment to the Federal Reserve, he served as the under secretary of the treasury for domestic finance under President George H. W. Bush. Mullins left the government service to join the hedge fund Long Term Capital Management and remained in private finance following its collapse in 1998.
Harbinger Capital Partners is a private hedge fund based in New York City, New York, founded by Philip Falcone. Harbinger is a highly diversified multi-strategy hedge fund. Notable investments have included sub-prime mortgages in the United States and the United Kingdom, such as HBOS, and LightSquared, a wireless communications company that filed bankruptcy in 2012.
Magnetar Capital LLC is a hedge fund based in Evanston, Illinois. The firm was founded in 2005 and invests in fixed-income, energy, quantitative, and event-driven strategies. The firm was actively involved in the collateralized debt obligation (CDO) market during the 2006–2007 period. In some articles critical of Magnetar Capital, the firm's arbitrage strategy for CDOs is described as the "Magnetar trade".
Paulson & Co., Inc. is a family office based in New York City. Previously, it was a hedge fund established by John Paulson in 1994. Specializing in "global mergers, event arbitrage, and credit strategies", the firm had a relatively low profile on Wall Street until its hugely successful bet against the subprime mortgage market in 2007. At one time the company had offices in London and Dublin.
Clarium Capital Management LLC was an American investment management and hedge fund company pursuing a global macro strategy. It was founded in San Francisco in 2002 by Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal and early investor in Facebook. Its assets under management grew to $8 billion in 2008, after which a series of unprofitable investments and client redemptions shrank that to about $350 million as of 2011.
Charles J. Gradante is an Italian-American businessman in the hedge fund industry, appearing on television and before the United States Congress in that role. Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute's PensionDaily.com called Gradante "one of Wall Street's most sought after opinion leaders" for financial and economic areas. Gradante is known as one of the first hedge fund industry executives to spark a legendary debate about the risk of hedge funds growing too large rather than focusing on finding investments where they have a competitive edge; he most recently discussed the issue at a conference hosted by The Palm Beach Hedge Fund Association that was covered by Yahoo Finance and CorpGov.
Russell Abrams is an American hedge fund manager and entrepreneur who is the founder of Russellcar, a taxi cab rent-to-own company in Buenos Aires.
Garda Capital Partners (Garda) is an American investment management firm based in Wayzata, Minnesota that focuses on investments in fixed income securities. The firm originated from Black River Asset Management, an investment management unit of Cargill.