Ex-Clive Capital CIO wunderkind joins Moore Capital Management

Moore Capital has hired Tristan Almada, the 28-year-old former co-CIO of Taurosso Capital, the in-house hedge fund of now-defunct commodity fund Clive Capital.

Louis Bacon’s $12.1bn hedge fund seems to be making a habit of hiring from distressed rivals for its London office. In February, it lifted a nine-strong investment team out of SAC Capital Advisor’s UK operation, which closed in July 2013, including portfolio managers Israa Al Bayaa, Nicholas Aldridge, Arjun Menon, Alexios Papacostantinou, Bramen Singanayagam, Martin Stapleton and Louis Villa.

Almada returns for a second spell at Moore Capital, having spent a year there as an analyst from 2005. He joined Clive Capital as a portfolio manager in January 2008, before taking the reins of Taurosso Capital in September 2012 when he was just 26, along with then 25-year-old trader Nicolas Rossi. His new position is not yet known, and Almada could not be reached for comment.

Chris Levett, Clive Capital’s founder, was also a partner of Taurosso Capital, which allowed Rossi and Alamada to generate their own fees while also still investing for the parent company through the Clive Strategist Fund.

Clive Capital was formed in 2007 and ran around $5bn at its peak, but closed in September last year, blaming a lack of suitable investment opportunities. "We perceive there to be limited, suitable opportunities at this point in the economic-demand and the commodity-supply cycles to enable us ... to generate the strong returns of the past,” Clive said in a letter to investors.

The vast majority of its staff have yet to reappear on the Financial Conduct Authority in new positions. Only Elizabeth Holstein, its head of investor relations, who started at London Management Group in March, and Almada have found new employment.

In the year ended November 2013, Taurosso Capital generated profits of $552.5k, according to accounts filed on Companies House in February, compared to a $34.6k loss in 2012. It has five partners, the highest paid of which received $434.3k last year, up from $48k the previous year.

Unlike a lot of hedge funds, which tend to hire at the junior level and then mould new employees, Elaine Crocker, a president at the firm charge with bringing in talent, says that it tends only to hire "fully formed" traders who presumably have received their training elsewhere.

As well as his hedge fund position, Almada is also president and co-founder of The HPV and Anal Cancer Foundation, which aims to increase research methods and prevention of the HPV virus that causes the majority of cases of the disease. His mother died of the virus-related anal cancer in 2010 and the cause has attracted support from other figures in the financial sector.

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