Equities trader with 'perfect career' finds a new hedge fund job

Rohit Agarwal, a former J.P. Morgan prop trader who joined hedge fund Lansdowne Partners in 2014 to help set up a new energy fund, has left to work for a different hedge fund.

Agarwal's exit from Lansdowne was reported before Christmas, but his reemergence at long-short equity fund Sloane Robinson has only just become apparent.

With equities traders facing an uncertain year ahead, Agarwal's career is probably something plenty of traders would like to emulate. After graduating from the London School of Economics, he spent nine years working in banking (Bernstein, UBS and J.P. Morgan) before escaping to the buy-side with Pictet Asset Management. After 15 months at Pictet, he quit for a hedge fund (Lansdowne) and now he's off to another hedge fund (Sloane Robinson).

Founded by British hedge fund managers George Robinson and Hugh Sloane in 1993, Sloane Robinson focuses on equity investments in emerging markets. Agarwal isn't its only recent hire: Robert Galway Cooper, another former Bernstein equities analyst, joined in November. Like Agarwal, Galway Cooper made a transitional move out of banking and into a long only fund (Neptune Investment Management) before arriving at the hedge fund. If you're an equities professional who wants to escape banking, this looks like the way to go.

Per Lekander, who was hired by Lansdowne to run the commodities fund at the same time as Agarwal remains in situ. Lansdowne lost around £250m ($310m) in the first nine months of last year after wrongly betting that shares in mining giant Glencore would fall.

Contact: sbutcher@efinancialcareers.com