Picking off Hunter
The impending return of Brian Hunter to the financial markets is good news for those of you who plan to pick his pockets the second time around. After all, his missteps and mis-pricings helped Chicago’s Citadel Investment Group to a 30% gain in 2006.
Not a bad payday for Ken Griffin’s roughly $13 billion fund.
Ken could probably teach Brian a thing or two about risk management:
"There's a risk-management paranoia there," says a former top executive. "It's like the North American Ballistic Military Command." The point of all this technology is to make the firm more agile. It allows Griffin "to assess and grasp situations and get his team deployed at lightning speed in almost any situation," says a former trader. "No other hedge fund has this."
Although hundreds of ex-employees and at least one of his peers don't think as highly of Ken:
A more colorful assessment of Griffin's abilities comes from one of his peers: Dan Loeb, the voluble chief of Third Point Partners who's famous for slamming competitors in open letters that end up all over the Internet, apparently refers to Griffin as a "gerbil."
In 2005, after Griffin snagged an analyst from another shop, Loeb sent an e-mail to Griffin: “I find the disconnect between your self-proclaimed ‘good to great, Jim Collins-esque’ organization and the reality of the gulag you created quite laughable. You are surrounded by sycophants, but even you must know that the people who work for you despise and resent you. I assume you know this because I have read the employment agreements that you make people sign.” Citadel declined comment, as did Loeb.
Dan has probably gotten over Ken poaching an employee. But Ken sure sounds boring next to Dan.
But what are you going to do, sue him?
Read the Fortune article about Ken Griffin
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