Hedge Funds Face Succession Challenge as Kovner Hands Off to Law
14.09.11
Sept. 14 (Bloomberg) -- Bruce Kovner is betting he can pull off what eluded Stanley Druckenmiller and Julian Robertson: Keeping his hedge fund alive after retiring from trading client money.
Kovner yesterday named chief investment officer Andrew Law, 45, to run his $10 billion Caxton Associates LP. Kovner, 66, who started the New York-based firm in 1983, told clients in a letter that he will retire by the end of the year to pursue personal interests. Peter D’Angelo, 64, the firm’s president and co-founder, will also step aside.
Caxton is confronting a difficult challenge for a growing number of hedge funds: managing succession in a business where success is built on the founders’ trading skill and reputation. Unlike private-equity firms such as Blackstone Group LP, which transformed themselves from private investment partnerships into public, diversified asset managers, top hedge funds from Robertson’s Tiger Management LLC to Druckenmiller’s Duquesne Capital Management LLC returned investor money after the founders stepped back.
Source: BusinessWeek