Did hedge fund ExodusPoint halve London pay last year?

ExodusPoint, the multistrategy hedge fund founded by Michael Gelband in 2017, had a challenging 2023: investors withdrew $1bn from its assets under management, its second year of withdrawals. Returns globally were 7.3%, which were better than at Balyasny, but worse than at Citadel (15.3%) or Millennium (10%).

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This might be why ExodusPoint's newly released accounts for the UK suggest that something unfavourable has occurred to pay. 

As the chart below, taken from the accounts for ExodusPoint Capital Management UK LLP, depicts, ExodusPoint appears to have hired ten new people in the UK last year, while cutting spending on wages and salaries by 50%. When pension spending is added in, ExodusPoint Capital Management UK LLP spent an average of £414k ($552k) paying each person in 2023, down from an average of £933k in 2022. 

Dramatic drops of this nature are often due to interactions between multiple UK subsidiaries, but ExodusPoint Services UK Ltd, another UK subsidiary, shows a similarly precipitous decline in compensation spending. 

Lower spending on compensation followed a 21% decline in revenues to £131m at ExodusPoint Capital Management LLP last year. However, profits available for distribution between members (partners) rose 23% to £79m.

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