Hedge fund Millennium lost a top portfolio manager amidst an apparent dispute
If you're familiar with the operations of hedge fund Millennium, you might also be familiar with a quant pod run by ex-SocGen equities trader Jonathan Bensimon, called Azur. Formed six years ago and run out of New York, Azur also has offices in Paris and Asia. It's thought to be one of Millennium's largest.
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Recently, though, it's understood that Azur may have sprung a leak. Millennium isn't commenting, but sources say that Romain Castillon, one of its top profit-generators has expressed an interest in joining a rival fund.
Castillon didn't respond to a request to comment, but it's thought he may be embarking to GSA Capital, a London-based quant fund which employs 150 people. GSA Capital did not confirm this. It's a lucrative place to work: last time we looked, it was paying London-based partners $3m and other employees $450k. Paul Mayer, Azur's chief technology officer, is also thought to be leaving for the same destination.
However, there seems to be an issue. We understand that Millennium and Castillon are locked in an employment tribunal case in Geneva.
It's not clear what the case concerns, but it's no unknown for such disputes to concern non-compete and non-solicitation agreements. Naftali Cohen, a former senior quant researcher at Schonfeld and ex-AI researcher at JPMorgan, just joined Millennium as a senior quant in New York, but only after a period out of the market.
Castillon joined Millennium from Squarepoint in 2019. Like Bensimon, he previously worked for SocGen. That friendship is possibly over.
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