Louis Bacon to close Moore Capital hedge fund
Veteran hedge fund manager Louis Bacon is reportedly planning to shut down Moore Capital, the firm he founded, after 30 years of trading.
Bacon intends to shutter Moore Capital, which had $10.2bn assets under management in 2018, and return capital to investors, the Financial Times reported.
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The firm has been hit by diminished performance at some of its funds, including one managed by Bacon that declined almost six per cent last year amid two spikes in market volatility and another Moore fund that fell 3.3 per cent, according to performance information seen by the FT.
Bacon helped popularise trading on a macro basis, making bets based on his predictions for global macroeconomic trends.
Moore Capital focuses on macroeconomic themes in its portfolios and trades stocks, bonds, and currencies alongside other financial instruments.
The company is based in New York, but also has offices in London, Hong Kong and Miami.
Fellow veteran hedge fund manager Jeffrey Vinik last month shut down his hedge fund less than a year after it reopened.
“It has been much harder to raise money over the last several months than I anticipated,” Vinik said in a letter to investors.
Bacon, who was raised in North Carolina, launched Moore Capital in 1989 using a $25,000 inheritance from his mother.
He gained notoriety in financial circles after making gains of 86 per cent in 1990 when he bet against Japanese markets, and is considered one of the best-known hedge fund managers of his generation.
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A letter Bacon wrote to mark his fund’s 20th anniversary also explained that his accurate predictions on the markets’ reaction to the invasion of Iraq netted his investment fund returns of 35 per cent.
In 2010 Forbes estimated Bacon’s net worth to be $1.5bn. He is a keen conservationist, and has worked on projects to protect habitats in the US and Bahamas.
CityAM has contacted Moore Capital for comment.