Weekly round up

BlackRock’s Hibbert back in positive territory in 2023

The BlackRock Strategic Equity Hedge Fund, overseen by renowned manager Alister Hibbert, rebounded in the past year, experiencing a double digit increase. This turnaround followed its most challenging annual loss the previous year, as reported by Bloomberg. According to the report, the fund, boasting $9.6 billion in assets as of November's end achieved a 16% gain in 2023, marking its most impressive performance in three years after a 12% loss in 2022.

Rokos hedge fund up 8.8% in 2023

Rokos Capital Management, the macro trading hedge fund established by Chris Rokos, managed to recover from early year losses and finished 2023 with an 8.8% gain, as reported by Bloomberg. According to the report, the $16 billion firm like many of its competitors, faced challenges due to volatile movements in interest rate markets in the initial months of the year. Despite a loss of approximately 1% in the final month of 2023, the fund rebounded from setbacks earlier in the year.

Ex-Goldman Sachs MD among seven new Millennium partners

Millennium Management has appointed seven new partners, including Alan Avery, a 35-year-old former Managing Director at Goldman Sachs according to eFinancial Careers.

The report names six other partners: Damien Fisher, Marco Silvestri, Zhenhai Li, Dale Gibbard, Damien Mccaughley, and Alexei Melnikov. Fisher, previously associated with BlackRock, joined Millennium in 2022. Silvestri, who had a history with UBS, has been part of the firm since 2014, while Li, a quant professional transitioned from Oxford Asset Management to Millennium in 2020. Gibbard, a natural gas trader joined from Citadel in 2020. Mccaughley became part of Millennium in 2019 after his tenure at Deutsche, and Melnikov, a PM specialising in emerging markets equities started his career at Citi in London before joining Millennium in 2014.

ValueAct posts 39% gain for 2023

ValueAct Capital, an activist hedge fund firm based in San Francisco, enjoyed substantial success last year, reporting an impressive 39% return, as outlined in a Reuters report. This success was attributed to profitable investments in KKR, Insight Enterprises, and Salesforce.

Hedge Fund Research data indicates that 2023 proved to be a favourable year for activism overall, with the average activist hedge fund yielding approximately 20%. This marked a significant improvement from the previous year, when funds experienced an average loss of 16%.