Hedgeweek Features

Employees at London-based hedge fund firm Marshall Wace enjoyed a 12% pay increase last year, even as the London-based hedge fund reported a steep decline in revenue due to a sharp drop in performance fees, according to a report by eFinancial Careers.

For the year ending March 2024, Marshall Wace’s revenue fell nearly 40%, dropping from £1.2bn to £769m. The decline was driven by a 73% collapse in performance fees, signalling a challenging year for the firm.

Despite this, the average employee pay jumped to £413,000 ($533,000)—up from £370,000 ($478,000) in 2023. This rise came amid a 16% increase in headcount, with total staff growing from 301 to 350. Most of the hiring occurred in office and administrative roles, which grew from 200 to 241, while fund management headcount rose by just 8%.

In 2024, one of Marshall Wace’s 24 members (partners) took home £74m, while in 2023, another received £266m (€319m) in profit-related pay.

Multi-strategy hedge fund Verition Fund Management has parted ways with at least four investment professionals across its global offices in recent weeks, as part of a broader effort to refine its trading teams, according to a report by eFinancial Careers.

The four know to have left the form are: Patrick Kelly, an emerging markets FX trader in New York, who joined from Citi in 2021; Shyam Parameswaran, an FX portfolio manager in Singapore; Madan Reddy, an FX analyst in Singapore; and Alex Radu, a portfolio manager based in London.

While Verition declined to comment on the departures, sources suggest that a lack of diversification within its FX teams may have played a role in the reshuffle.

Founded in 2008, Verition has grown into a major player in the multi-strategy space, managing nearly $12bn in AUM. The firm has expanded aggressively in recent years, quadrupling the size of its Park Avenue office during the pandemic. It now employs over 400 investment professionals globally.

GAM Investments has entered into a strategic partnership with Gramercy Funds Management LLC to enhance its Emerging Market Debt (EM Debt) strategies, ensuring clients continue to benefit from specialszed expertise and future product innovation.

Under the agreement – and pending customary regulatory approvals – Gramercy will assume the role of delegate investment manager for all of GAM’s EM Debt strategies.

Gramercy, a $6bn AUM investment firm, has a long-standing track record in emerging market investments, navigating multiple credit cycles. Founded in 1998 by Managing Partner and CIO Robert Koenigsberger, the firm is chaired by Mohamed A El-Erian and operates with a global presence spanning the US, UK, Latin America, and key emerging markets.

With a fully integrated risk management and ESG framework, Gramercy manages dedicated lending platforms in Mexico, Türkiye, Peru, Pan-Africa, Brazil, and Colombia, positioning itself to capitalise on evolving macroeconomic conditions.
Philip Meier, Gramercy’s Deputy CIO and Head of EM Debt, will play a key role in managing GAM’s EM Debt strategies. Meier, an 18-year investment veteran, brings deep expertise in emerging markets and has been instrumental in shaping portfolio management strategies.

As part of the transition, Paul McNamara, GAM’s longstanding Investment Director for EM Debt, has announced his retirement in 2025 after nearly three decades in asset management. He will continue with GAM until his departure to ensure a smooth handover to Gramercy’s team.

Investment Manager Markus Heider will remain at GAM, working alongside Gramercy to maintain client relationships and drive investment performance.

With Gramercy taking over management of GAM’s EM Debt strategies, the partnership aims to enhance investment expertise, product innovation, and risk-adjusted returns in emerging markets. The transition marks a new chapter for GAM’s fixed-income business while ensuring continuity and strong leadership in its EM Debt portfolios.

Mitesh Parikh, a long-time macro investor at $12bn multi-manager hedge fund firm Schonfeld Strategic Advisors, has stepped away from running his trading book to focus on developing investment talent, according to a report by Business Insider.

The report cites unnamed sources familiar with the firm as revealing that Parikh, co-head of Schonfeld’s discretionary macro and fixed income unit alongside Colin Lancaster, ceased trading at the end of 2024. While his book was among the largest in the division, sources indicate the move was not performance-related, with Parikh having delivered profitable returns in each of the three years he managed capital at Schonfeld.

Since joining in 2021, Parikh and Lancaster have expanded the macro unit significantly, growing their team to over 60 investment professionals. Their arrival came after closing their hedge fund, Matador Investment Management, to build out Schonfeld’s discretionary macro platform.

With the division now at scale, Parikh, based in Dubai, has shifted his focus to business development and talent acquisition. His repositioning aligns with industry trends, where top investment managers are increasingly tasked with managing teams rather than trading.

Parikh’s transition mirrors moves by other hedge fund leaders: Steve Cohen stepped back from trading at Point72; Alan Howard no longer manages Brevan Howard’s strategies, and Bobby Jain, who raised over $5bn for his new fund, sold himself to investors as an executive leader rather than a trading specialist.

A similar shift occurred last year at Balyasny Asset Management, with the firm reallocating its top Asia equity portfolio manager to build out the firm’s regional investment team.

Parikh has also played a key role in Schonfeld’s Dubai expansion, helping the firm establish a broader presence in the Middle East. The firm has recruited portfolio managers across multiple strategies, including Delta One and equity long-short, reinforcing its footprint in the region.

Additionally, Schonfeld’s macro division pivoted in 2024 toward relative-value strategies, reducing exposure to more volatile directional trades. This move followed a challenging 2023, during which rumoors swirled about a potential takeover by Millennium Management.

Despite speculation, Schonfeld rebounded strongly in 2024, delivering a 19.7% return, outpacing Point72, Millennium, and Citadel. However, while the fund posted a 2.2% gain through February 2025, it faced headwinds from market volatility in early March.

Digital asset investment products saw their second consecutive week of inflows last week totaling $226m suggesting positive but cautious investor sentiment, according to the latest Digital Asset Fund Flows Weekly Report from CoinShares.

Altcoins saw their first week of inflows totalling $33m, following four consecutive weeks of outflows totalling $1.7bn.

The key beneficiaries were ether, solana, XRP and sui, with inflows of $14.5m, $7.8m, $4.8m and $4.0m respectively.

Bridgewater Associates, one of the world’s largest hedge funds, saw its assets under management (AUM) decline by 18.1% in 2024, falling to $92.1bn, according to a recent regulatory filing, as the firm deliberately reduced the size of its flagship fund, according to a report by Reuters.

The reduction came amid strong, double-digit performance at the Pure Alpha Fund.

Bridgewater, which managed $150bn in 2021, has been actively downsizing its AUM to enhance investment agility. Under CEO Nir Bar Dea’s leadership, the firm has been returning capital to clients and limiting new inflows to Pure Alpha. The fund was deliberately cut to $61bn, aligning with Bridgewater’s internal target of $50bn to $60 bn.

A source close to the firm emphasised that Bridgewater’s goal is to be the best, not the biggest. The firm is expanding into Asia-focused strategies and AI-driven investment products, diversifying beyond its traditional macroeconomic trading approach.

Despite the declining AUM, Bridgewater’s flagship Pure Alpha 18% volatility fund returned 11.3% in 2024, outperforming the broader hedge fund industry. In 2025, the fund has gained 8.7% through 28 March, capitalising on market volatility driven by US trade policy shifts.

However, some investors have opted to redeem funds, citing Bridgewater’s historically uneven performance. While Pure Alpha outperformed in 2024, it lagged behind its peers in both 2022 and 2023. The firm’s global macro strategy – trading equities, bonds, currencies, and commodities – has seen mixed results, though it has recently rebounded.

Distressed debt specialist Redwood Capital and a group of rival hedge funds led by Cheyne Strategic Value Credit are embroiled in a high-stakes battle over the debt of Hunkemöller, one of Europe’s largest lingerie brands, according to a report by the Financial Times.

In a dispute that highlights the growing prevalence of US-style creditor-on-creditor conflicts in European markets, Redwood Capital this month seized control of the Dutch retailer through a controversial debt restructuring move, prompting the rival group, which includes Man Group, and Contrarian Capital, to explore legal avenues to challenge the takeover, according to sources familiar with the situation.

The group had already sued Redwood and Hunkemöller in New York in November, alleging that an earlier transaction violated bondholder rights.

The dispute is part of a broader trend where hedge funds engage in aggressive debt restructurings – a practice more common in US distressed markets but now gaining traction in Europe.

In 2023, Hunkemöller borrowed €50m in super senior debt from Redwood, which was already the company’s largest bondholder. This transaction ranked Redwood’s new debt ahead of all existing bonds, while also swapping €186m of Redwood’s older bonds into a new, higher-ranking position.

This move effectively pushed rival creditors – including Cheyne and its partners – further down the capital structure, weakening their claim on the company’s assets. Their €84m in senior secured bonds were leapfrogged by Redwood’s new priority debt, prompting the legal challenge.
The creditor group argued in its US lawsuit that this “up-tiering” transaction violated contractual guarantees, effectively diluting their claims in a manner they claim is legally dubious.

Redwood’s aggressive debt strategy is not limited to Hunkemöller. According to sources, the hedge fund has been building a significant position in the bonds of Victoria Plc, a UK-based carpet manufacturer known for supplying red carpets to the British royal family.

South Africa’s Amplify Investment Partners has expanded its hedge fund suite with the launch of two new retail investor-focused funds – the Amplify SCI Property Retail Hedge Fund, and the Amplify SCI Active Equity Retail Hedge Fund, according to a report by CityWire.

The fund’s which debuted in February and November last year, respectively, bring the firm’s total hedge fund count to nine.

According to Wade Witbooi, Head of Amplify, these new offerings underscore the firm’s commitment to uncovering unique investment opportunities and delivering diversified, risk-adjusted returns for investors.

With the introduction of these funds, Amplify’s assets under management (AUM) have surged from ZAR46.7 billion at the end of 2023 to ZARR62 billion.

The Active Equity Retail Hedge Fund, which was formerly known as the Amplify SCI Multi-Strategy Retail Hedge Fund, has transitioned from a multi-strategy approach to a long-short equity hedge fund, now managed by AG Capital, which replaced Obsidian Capital. AG Capital is jointly owned by Anchor Group and its own management team.

The newly launched Property Retail Hedge Fund is managed by property boutique Catalyst Fund Managers, which oversees ZAR27bn in AUM, including over ZAR1bn in alternative listed real estate investments across South African and global hedge funds.

The fund follows a long-short variable-bias strategy, focusing on both local and global listed real estate. Catalyst uses a discounted cash flow approach adjusted with a bond hurdle rate to identify relative value opportunities, complemented by opportunistic trades including: discounted vendor placements; merger or takeover arbitrage; corporate actions like IPOs; secondary offerings; and scrip dividends.

According to Catalyst portfolio manager Marcus Erlank, the fund prioritises risk-adjusted returns, considering factors such as earnings stability, real estate portfolio quality, capital structure, and management strength.

Amplify believes that listed real estate remains an under-researched asset class, offering arbitrage and mis-pricing opportunities. The fund seeks to deliver annualised returns of 12% to 15% over three to five years, with low correlation to broader markets.

The fund’s portfolio allocation is expected to be one-third in local listed property, one-third in global listed property, and one-third in cash or equivalents.

The Amplify SCI Active Equity Retail Hedge Fund takes a momentum-driven approach with a fundamental overlay, primarily investing in South Africa’s top 40 equities with a long bias.

According to AG Capital portfolio manager Richard Arnesen, the fund avoids overcrowded trades and focuses on generating returns irrespective of market direction. Its core objectives include: capital preservation; minimising drawdowns; and delivering consistent risk-adjusted returns.

The fund maintains a high-conviction, concentrated portfolio of 15 to 20 positions, leveraging an extensive risk management toolbox.

AG Capital’s Rainbow FR Retail Hedge Fund, which employs the same team, strategy, and process, has delivered an annualised five-year return of 18.81%, outperforming the JSE/FTSE All Share Index’s (Alsi) 13.1%, with a smaller maximum drawdown of 6.5% versus Alsi’s 21.4%.

The Schroder UK Mid Cap Fund has announced a series of investor-friendly reforms after fending off an attempt by Boaz Weinstein’s Saba Capital to overhaul its structure, according to a report by This is Money.

The £204m investment trust, which holds stakes in companies such as butcher Cranswick and defence firm Babcock, was targeted last month when Saba Capital proposed converting the fund from a closed-ended to an open-ended structure. The hedge fund’s move, had it been successful, could have made it more difficult for investors to sell their shares during periods of heavy redemptions.

Although the board ruled Saba’s proposal invalid, the trust has now introduced a range of measures to enhance investor appeal, including: lower management fees to improve cost efficiency; a triennial continuation vote, giving shareholders the opportunity to decide on the trust’s future every three years; and increased share buybacks to help prevent shares from trading at a significant discount to net asset value.

Despite the timing of these changes, a spokesperson for the trust denied they were the result of negotiations with Saba Capital.

Saba Capital’s attempt to force structural change at Schroder UK Mid Cap was part of a broader activist campaign by Weinstein. In December, the hedge fund manager sought to remove the leadership of seven UK investment trusts and replace them with himself and his allies. However, those efforts ultimately failed.

Hedge funds offloaded technology stocks at the fastest pace in six months last week, with selling activity reaching a five-year high, according to a report by Reuters citing data from the prime brokerage division at Goldman Sachs.

The retreat comes as markets brace for the 2 April tariff deadline set by US President Donald Trump, raising concerns over economic instability and potential retaliatory measures from trade partners.

In a note to clients seen by Reuters, Goldman Sachs revealed that hedge funds shed long positions and exited short bets in the information technology sector, which includes the Magnificent Seven tech stocks. The bank’s prime brokerage desk, which tracks hedge fund trading activity, identified tech as “by far the most net sold” sector last week.

Tech stocks accounted for 75% of hedge fund selling, with a particular focus on companies producing AI-related hardware, Goldman noted.

The move away from tech stocks has coincided with an increase in short selling, according to a separate note from Morgan Stanley. The report highlighted Nvidia (NVDA), Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), and Tesla (TSLA) as the top three shorted stocks among hedge funds on Wednesday.

Analysts at Edmond de Rothschild linked the tech stock selloff to concerns over upcoming copper tariffs, which are expected to impact semiconductor and AI-related hardware manufacturers.

Total hedge fund exposure to tech stocks has now fallen to a five-year low, Goldman reported. While hedge funds had previously bought into tech in mid-March, the past week saw a sharp reversal, driven by escalating trade tensions and fears of a potential recession.

Meanwhile, JPMorgan suggested that strong retail investor buying activity may have also pressured hedge fund positioning in the sector.

Hong Kong’s derivatives market is experiencing an unprecedented surge, driven by heightened stock market swings and increased hedge fund activity, according to a report by Reuters citing trading data from the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

As of March 2025, the number of outstanding futures and options contracts on the exchange reached 22 million, marking a 70% increase from last year’s record levels in just three months.

Analysts attribute the rise in derivatives trading to: a rally in Chinese technology stocks, particularly Tencent (0700.HK), Alibaba (9988.HK), and Xiaomi (1810.HK); and hedge funds using derivatives for risk management, especially in response to geopolitical tensions and tariff uncertainties.

“The surge in single stock options activity has been significant,” said Jason Lui, Head of APAC Equity and Derivatives Strategy at BNP Paribas. Call and put options have become a preferred strategy for leveraged bets while controlling downside risk.

Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing has expanded its derivatives offerings, launching weekly options on the Hang Seng TECH Index and 10 individual stocks to meet growing investor demand.

Stock market volatility has been fuelled by China’s AI advancements, particularly the emergence of DeepSeek, a low-cost AI reasoning model, as well as President Xi Jinping’s rare meeting with tech leaders, which boosted investor sentiment.

In addition, the Hang Seng Index has risen 17% year-to-date, with Alibaba and Xiaomi surging 50% each.

Despite the rally, tariff threats from U.S. President Donald Trump continue to pose risks.

Ocean Arete, a Hong Kong-based $1 billion macro hedge fund, has increased its China equity exposure while maintaining hedges for potential volatility.

“One of the primary uncertainties we’re navigating is the US-China relationship and broader geopolitical risks,” said Yuexin Zeng, Head of Investor Relations at Ocean Arete. “Volatility will likely remain elevated for longer.”

Aspoon Capital, which reported 14% returns in the first two months of 2025, has been using China tech index put options to hedge against potential tariff shocks.

“The market may be too complacent about tariff risks,” warned Ryan Yin, Chief Investment Officer at Aspoon Capital.

According to Nick Silver, Head of Prime Services for Asia Pacific at BNP Paribas, derivatives trading has seen strong momentum over the past six months, particularly for China-related assets.

“Investors have had to become much more comfortable with trading in volatile markets,” he said. “Using derivatives remains the most efficient way to navigate uncertainty.”

Hedge funds are increasingly betting against major tech stocks, with Nvidia (NVDA), Tesla (TSLA), and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) emerging as their top short targets, according to a report by Reuters citing a Morgan Stanley note released on Thursday.

The investment bank’s institutional equity division reported that Wednesday marked the third-largest day of single-stock selling by hedge funds this year, with the technology sector leading the sell-off.

According to Morgan Stanley, hedge funds predominantly increased short positions in their portfolios while making only slight reductions to long exposures. This shift highlights growing concerns about the stock market’s outlook, following two consecutive years of 20%-plus gains in the S&P 500. The index is down 2.6% year-to-date, reflecting investor anxiety over US trade policy and broader economic headwinds.

The targeted short positions in Nvidia, Tesla, and AMD suggest that hedge funds see select members of the once high-flying “Magnificent Seven” as overvalued.

Except for Meta Platforms (META), most of the Magnificent Seven stocks have underperformed the S&P 500 in 2024. Tesla has fallen more than 31%, while Nvidia is down over 16%. AMD, though not part of the Magnificent Seven, has declined more than 12% this year.

Despite the bearish sentiment, hedge funds closed out short positions in Apple (AAPL) and Alphabet (GOOGL) on Wednesday, suggesting a selective approach to their short-selling strategies.

Data from analytics firm Ortex shows that short interest in the Magnificent Seven stocks has been increasing, though it remains below early-year levels. On Tuesday, short interest in the group rose by 8% to 1.19%, before slightly retreating the next day.

Tesla has been a major target for short sellers, with short interest climbing close to 3%. The company’s shrinking market share in Europe, as reported by the European Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACEA), has added to bearish pressure. Still, Tesla’s stock gained 3.45% on Tuesday, despite the data.

The Fixed Income Clearing Corporation (FICC), a subsidiary of the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), has launched enhanced US Treasury clearing capabilities, introducing new access models and customer margin segregation.

The move comes as market volumes and participation continue to climb, ahead of the 31 March, 2025, deadline set by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which has extended mandatory clearing requirements for US Treasury cash and repo transactions.

FICC’s daily clearing volumes have surged past $9tn, with peaks exceeding $10.4tn in late February. This marks a significant rise from $4.5tn before the SEC proposed expanded clearing rules and $7.2 trillion when the rules were finalised in December 2023.

Buyside participation has also increased dramatically. In February, cleared buyside activity through FICC’s Sponsored Service grew 85% year-over-year, with peak volumes exceeding $2tn at the end of 2024. The service now provides the industry with more than $700bn in daily balance sheet capacity, and total balance sheet savings reached $900 billion by year-end.

HSBC’s London-based head of CEEMEA rates trading, Andrew Dinnis, has resigned and is expected to join an unnamed hedge fund once his notice period ends, marking another senior departure from the bank, according to a report by eFinancial Careers.

Dinnis, who has been with HSBC for 14 years, led trading for Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (CEEMEA) rates. While HSBC has yet to comment on the move, Dinnis also declined to respond to inquiries.

His exit follows HSBC’s bonus payouts last week and comes amid a broader shift at the bank. While HSBC is shutting down its M&A and equity capital markets businesses in Europe and the US, Dinnis’s departure is unrelated to these closures.

Other key figures have also left HSBC in recent weeks. Nils Hansen, a managing director in the US syndicate team, recently departed, while Mark Epley, chairman of the US financial sponsors group, also announced his exit.

Quincy Data, a global specialists launched new Transatlantic Signal Feeds distributing key CME data in London, Frankfurt, and Mumbai, providing market participants with trading indicators of large trade events for key CME futures instruments with minimal delay.

The Signal Feed latency from CME in Aurora, IL to the Slough-LD4 data centre in the UK is 23.x milliseconds one-way, enabling the fastest possible price discovery.

Quincy Data co-founder Stephane Tyc, said: “Our goal is to provide our subscribers with the fastest possible access to essential market data. Quincy leverages a broad range of advanced wireless technologies to ensure global distribution with the lowest latency.”

Quincy Data offers three categories of market data services:
Snapshot Feeds, which distribute normalised market data across more than twenty points of presence worldwide; Raw Feeds, which are optimised for distribution using high-capacity wireless; and Signal Feeds, which provide the fastest means of price discovery to geographically distant markets.

All Quincy Data services are offered on a level playing field, ensuring equal access to the lowest-latency solutions for all subscribers.

Hedge fund Starboard Value has reignited its proxy battle with Autodesk, nominating three director candidates to the engineering and design software maker’s board, including Chief Executive Officer and Founder Jeff Smith, according to a report by Bloomberg.

The move comes as Starboard continues to push for margin growth and cost-cutting measures at the company.

Starboard’s other nominees are Geoff Ribar, former CFO of Cadence Design Systems, and Christie Simons, a senior partner at Deloitte & Touche.

Starboard, which holds a $500m stake in Autodesk, had previously cut its investment by 44% in Q4 2024, according to regulatory filings. The hedge fund argues that Autodesk overspends compared to its software peers and has underperformed the broader market.

Autodesk, with a $58bn valuation, has seen its shares fall over 7% in 2024—outpacing the S&P 500’s 1.8% decline.

In response to Starboard’s renewed push, Autodesk stated that its strategy is working, citing the addition of two independent directors in December. While the company expressed concerns about Starboard’s nomination process, it said it remains open to interviewing the hedge fund’s candidates.

Starboard’s renewed campaign follows a failed attempt last year to push its own board candidates. After losing a legal battle to reopen director nominations, the hedge fund called for leadership changes and expense reductions.

In December 2024, Autodesk responded by appointing two independent directors: John Cahill, former CEO and chairman of Kraft Foods; and Ram Krishnan, COO of Emerson.

The 13-member board is currently chaired by Stacy Smith, a former Intel executive, who also serves on the boards of Intel and Kioxia.

Two senior G10 FX traders have exited Citigroup, with one – John Nihill, a highly regarded FX trader based in Sydney – rumoured to be joining a hedge fund, as the battle for top trading talent intensifies, according to a report by eFinancial Careers.

Sources indicate that Nihill has decided to move into the hedge fund world after nearly a decade at Citi. He was reportedly one of Citi’s top revenue generators in the APAC region.

In London, Citi has also lost Angus Yard, a VP-level FX trader who had been with the bank since 2018. Yard’s next destination remains unclear. His departure follows that of Giles Page, one of Citi’s longest-serving FX managing directors, who retired last week after announcing his exit late last year.

The exits come amid a surge in hedge fund hiring of top FX talent, with firms aggressively expanding their trading desks to capitalise on volatile currency markets. Bloomberg reported in February that banks like Citi and Wells Fargo had been expanding FX trading teams, yet Citi now finds itself needing to backfill unexpected departures.

Citi’s FX division, led by Flavio Figueiredo since 2023, has faced internal scrutiny, with some traders voicing concerns that sales backgrounds are being favored over trading expertise

US activist hedge fund firm Elliott Investment Management has built an £850m short position against Shell, marking the largest disclosed wager against the FTSE 100 oil giant in nearly a decade, according to a report by The Times.

The report cites regulatory filings with the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) as revealing that Elliott’s 0.5% short position in Shell is the biggest since 2016, when hedge fund Davidson Kempner targeted the company.

The move comes as Elliott has amassed a near 5% stake in BP, valued at more than £3.5bn, where it is pressuring the company to cut costs and shift strategy. The hedge fund’s short position in Shell, alongside disclosed shorts in TotalEnergies and Repsol, is believed to be part of a broader hedging strategy to mitigate risks tied to its BP investment.

By shorting other major energy stocks, Elliott is protecting itself against sector-wide declines that could impact its BP position.

Elliott’s short disclosure coincided with Shell CEO Wael Sawan’s unveiling of a new cost-cutting and spending strategy aimed at closing the valuation gap between Shell and its US counterparts, Chevron and ExxonMobil.

At the same time, BP CEO Murray Auchincloss is under growing investor pressure to enhance performance and narrow BP’s valuation discount to its US rivals. Last month, Auchincloss abandoned BP’s previous green energy shift, opting to increase oil and gas production – a shift that came just weeks after Elliott’s stake in BP was disclosed.

Founded by Paul Singer in 1977, Florida-based Elliott Investment Management manages nearly $73bn in assets. Known for taking stakes in underperforming companies and pushing for strategic overhauls, Elliott has a history of leveraging the courts and shareholder activism to drive change.

The firm, which operates a major London office led by Gordon Singer, gained notoriety for its 15-year legal battle with Argentina over a debt default, eventually securing a $2.4bn settlement.

Elliott declined to comment on its position.

Hedge funds are snapping up economically sensitive stocks, betting on a rebound after recent selloffs driven by tariff-related recession fears in the US market, according to a report by Bloomberg citing data from the prime brokerage unit at Goldman Sachs.

Last week, hedge funds aggressively bought shares of banks, energy producers, and other cyclical companies at the fastest pace since December. These sectors had been among the hardest hit, with one key index falling nearly 10% from its recent highs amid President Donald Trump’s shifting tariff policies and concerns over U.S. economic growth.

“This year’s weakness in cyclicals was seen by some as an opportunity to buy the dip and re-enter at a better price,” said Jonathan Caplis, CEO of PivotalPath, who noted that fund managers view US financials and traditional energy stocks as less exposed to tariff risks than other sectors.

Signs of a rebound in cyclical stocks are emerging. The KBW Bank Index posted an eight-session winning streak – its longest since 2016 – before retreating on Wednesday as fresh tariff concerns resurfaced. A Citigroup index tracking cyclical stocks against defensive sectors like utilities and healthcare has also clawed back nearly half its recent losses.

If cyclicals continue to recover, it could indicate that investors see the economic impact of tariffs as less severe than initially feared.

Some investors are watching the relationship between cyclicals and defensive stocks, which traditionally act as safe havens during economic uncertainty. Bank of America strategist Jill Carey Hall noted that last week, the bank’s clients were larger net buyers of cyclicals than defensive stocks, signalling that they aren’t positioning for an imminent recession.

However, not everyone shares this optimism. Some market participants still believe tariffs could trigger a US economic downturn, and that markets have yet to fully price in this risk, despite a 7% drop in the S&P 500 from last month’s record high.

Stuart Kaiser, Citigroup’s head of US equity trading strategy, suggested that part of the rebound in cyclical stocks may be driven by expectations that the Trump administration’s tariff policies will be more targeted and less damaging than initially feared.

Schulte Roth & Zabel (Schulte) and Eisenhandler & Co (Eisenhandler) have formed a strategic partnership to deliver a comprehensive compensation consulting and legal services offering tailored to alternative investment managers.

This first-of-its-kind collaboration integrates Eisenhandler’s market-leading compensation consulting and data insights with Schulte’s legal and tax advisory expertise, providing a seamless approach to structuring compensation plans, partnership agreements, succession planning, and other employment-related matters.

Eisenhandler specialises in total rewards consulting and operates MarketLook, a proprietary compensation data platform that aggregates compensation trends across hedge funds, private equity, credit, and real estate investment managers.

Schulte, a law firm focused on alternative investment managers, offers legal and tax guidance on compensation structures, employment agreements, partnership terms, and regulatory compliance.

By combining their expertise, the firms aim to eliminate inefficiencies in the compensation structuring process, ensuring that data-driven recommendations are implemented with a legally and tax-compliant framework from the outset.

The partnership builds on a 15-year working relationship between Schulte and Shelley Eisenhandler, a veteran compensation consultant who launched Eisenhandler & Co in 2023.

According to a press statement, the partnership “removes friction for alternative investment firms when structuring compensation plans, ensuring legal and tax considerations are incorporated early, rather than requiring later revisions”.

Beyond compensation, the collaboration extends to employment law matters, including restrictive covenants, separation agreements, and DEI compliance.