Millennium pulls US$1.5bil out of hedge fund

Izzy EnglanderPhotographer: Ronda Churchill/Bloomberg

NEW YORK: Izzy Englander’s Millennium Management pulled cash from Meridiem Capital Partners three years after backing the stock-focused hedge fund.

The multi-strategy firm ended its arrangement with Khalid Malik’s Meridiem after a lockup period ended, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

Millennium gave the firm US$1.5bil in 2021 to manage on its behalf, the people said, asking not to be identified discussing private details.

Meridiem will continue to operate and is seeking other sources of capital, one of the people said.

A representative for the two firms declined to comment.

Multi-strats rely on dozens of trading teams to invest across asset classes. Increasingly, they’ve started to allocate to outside traders to expand the range of talent they can tap to deploy their rising assets.

Meridiem was among a string of such deals for Millennium, which has more than 320 teams that manage US$61bil. Such external arrangements make up less than 10% of Millennium’s teams of traders, and many of the outside groups manage money exclusively for Englander’s firm.

Equity hedge fund managers have endured a turbulent past few years, capturing much of the market’s downside but less of the upside. — Bloomberg