Two-time quant-focused MD departs Goldman Sachs yet again

A big-name quant developer who has spent nearly 15 years with Goldman Sachs across two different stints has left the firm for a second time. London’s Peter Hartley departed earlier this month.

Hartley, a former quant trader in foreign exchange and derivatives at Goldman who was named managing director in 2010, left the bank two years later to join Decura, a now-defunct hedge fund founded by ex-Goldman Sachs partner Vishal Gupta. Decura ceased operations in 2015 after losing a legal spat with UBS, with which it formed a joint venture whereby the bank would market the hedge fund's products to its clients.

Soon after agreeing to partner, UBS made cuts to its investment banking arm that Decura said undermined the joint venture. It’s $167 million lawsuit was dismissed in 2015 and Hartley, the fund’s head of quantitative analytics, rejoined Goldman as an MD soon thereafter. He focused on equity structured products, synthetics and risk, among other areas, during his second stint, according to LinkedIn. It’s so far unclear where Hartley is headed next. He didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Hartley is no longer listed in Goldman’s global directory.

The fight over experienced quants by sell-side and buy-side firms has only heated up in 2019. It will be interesting to see where Hartley lands.

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