Morning Coffee: The best hedge fund to work for is not even a hedge fund. Trump watchers have never been more valuable
If your criteria for joining a hedge fund is strong performance, you have a few options. There's the Melqart Opportunities Fund, which Bloomberg says returned 45.1% last year. There's Citadel, which has generated returns of 19% annually. Or, there's BlueCrest, which Bloomberg says has generated gains of 7,858% since 2016 and which generated 73% last year.
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It's the sort of performance that explains why Ankur Aneja, Barclays' rates trading star, chose to join BlueCrest as a partner after leaving Barclays in July. It also explains why BlueCrest founder Mike Platt is worth an estimated $12.8bn.
However, BlueCrest is not a hedge fund. It was, until Platt handed circa $7bn back to clients in late 2015 and BlueCrest became a family office. One advantage of this is that the firm is able to give more of its winnings to employees: portfolio managers there get a 30% cut of pnl. Another is that - as another head of a family office observes to Bloomberg, "internal governance is tight, but accountability is not mediated through clients." This seems to be a recipe for success.
However, working for a billionaire who says his ideal employee wakes up at 7am to make money on a Sunday is not always smooth going. Insiders say Platt can be ruthless. “Essentially we have one client, which is Mike,” said one former BlueCrest portfolio manager at a court case in 2022. “So he is the CEO, he's the CIO, but he is also the client….he's able to move the goalposts…. If he changes his mind or has a strong opinion then obviously, needless to say he's something of an expert, he expresses that.”
If you can tolerate this in return for an average £959k ($1.3m) in annual pay for partners and £534k for everyone else, Platt has been hiring. Since September, he's added five new partners - Aneja, plus Panayiotis Yiasoumi (from Eisler), Francois Puget (from BNP Paribas), Joshua Yee (from JPMorgan) and Zain Iqbal (from Verition).
Most of Platt's new partner hires are macro specialists. Platt himself is a former rates trader at JPMorgan and Bloomberg notes that his family offices specializes in rates and emerging markets. There has been an attempt to diversify into commodities, but people like Ed Pisano, a commodities PM hired in 2021 and Ameya Vikram, hired in 2022, have not stuck around.
Court documents four years ago indicated that BlueCrest managed $3.9bn, but leveraged this to $15bn. It's a formula that has worked for its founder. Platt, who is the son of a teacher, famously appeared in a video recorded in a cab a few years ago, declaring that he was "the highest earning person in finance, in the world." He now lives in Dubai with all the money.
Separately, an ability to interpret the intentions of the Trump administration has never been more lucrative. Bloomberg reports that hedge funds boosted their bets on crude oil in the week before Trump's invasion of Venezuela after anticipating military activity; Venezuelan government debt is up from 33 to 42 cents on the dollar; and someone made $400k betting on Maduro's downfall on Polymarket shortly before the capture occurred. It's no coincidence that Canadian bank CIBC has just hired David MacNaughton, a former ambassador to the US.
Meanwhile...
As in-person events return and diversity hiring wanes, recruiters are back to focusing on target schools only. McKinsey & Co. says it doesn’t want large numbers of students from other schools to apply because most would be rejected, which wouldn’t benefit them or the firm. (WSJ)
The New York Times thinks Jamie Dimon earned $770m last year, but it isn't explaining why. It's mostly thought to be down to equity appreciation. (NY Post)
Dealmaking fees hit $102.9bn during 2025, 15% higher than 2024. Only 2021 was a better year. (Financial News)
Deutsche Bank shares traded above book value for the first time since 2008. The stock hit €33.95 yesterday. Book value is €33.66. At their lowest, Deutsche shares traded at €5 in 2020. The bank is expected to generate its target 10% return this year. (Financial Times)
Hunterbrook Capital, a hedge fund with $100m under management that publishes exposés on corporate wrongdoing and shorts stocks before it does so, returned 23% last year after also unearthing some good investments. (WSJ)
House prices in Dubai have risen 75% since 2020. (Bloomberg)
"The clearest instance of class hierarchy is when dialling into team zoom call while wfh. PM & seniors wearing t-shirts visibly warm at home, while I'm in 3 layers to save heating bill and they don't bother to blur the background bcs why would you when you have nice art behind." (X)
"Recently grabbed coffee with an old friend who is an Investment Banking VP making $500K+ per year. Every five minutes, checks his work phone for emails. Can barely hold a conversation without getting distracted At one point, he starts writing an email to himself with the subject line “Test” I ask him what he is doing. He says it’s odd that he goes this long without receiving an email so wants to make sure his phone is still working." (X)
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