Steven Cohen’s SAC Capital makes big Asian hires

SAC Capital, the global hedge fund manager, has made a raft of new hires in Hong Kong to boost its long/short portfolio management team.

Shantanu Nagpal joined as a portfolio manager from Brevan Howard in early summer. He had not been in his seat long at Brevan Howard, only joining that firm in the first quarter of 2010, before moving across to SAC in Hong Kong.

Frank Ho also joined SAC in Hong Kong as a portfolio manager in June, from Highbridge Asia. That is the same fund from which Carl Huttenlocher departed earlier this year with the intention of setting up his own fund.

Joyce Ho has joined on the business development side, reporting to Angus Wai. She formerly worked at the Swiss fund of funds house Harcourt, which is owned by Vontobel.

SAC Capital, which specialises in long/short strategies, manages approximately $16 billion, and was founded by the well-known (but reclusive) hedge fund legend Steve Cohen, who continues to run the firm. 

It bucks industry trends by charging a 3% management fee and 50% performance fee, which is higher than the industry norm of 2% and 20%, and is understood to have soft-closed its flagship fund at the beginning of this month.

SAC Capital won AsianInvestor's “most innovative buy side (hedge fund)” award in late 2010, but soon afterwards it got swept into the US’s ongoing insider-trading controversy as SEC raids were carried out on offices of former employees who had set up new hedge funds. Those funds were Level Global Investors and Diamondback Capital Management.