Greg languishes but GLG triumphs after Coffey break

Nick Goodway
13 Nov 2009

Former GLG star hedge fund manager Greg Coffey has been left trailing by his previous employers in his first year apart from the London-based firm.

Coffey quit GLG in April last year leading to the withdrawal of more than $1 billion (£604 million) from funds he ran there.

Although Coffey was widely expected to set up his own hedge fund business, and said that that was his intention, he actually ended up joining Moore Capital a little more than a year ago.

The Moore Emerging Markets Fund, which opened last November, has since produced a return of 19.3%, according to the Wall Street Journal.

By contrast GLG's emerging market fund, which Coffey used to run, has produced a return of 27.2% over the same period.

But analysts pointed that Coffey's fund at $3 billion is some 10 times the size of the GLG equivalent.

The Australian Coffey turned his back on an estimated $250 million worth of bonuses and share options when he quit GLG.

Insiders pointed out that the performance of his new fund, which is believed to have attracted substantial funds from investors who backed him at GLG, may have suffered from transitional changes he made when he arrived. Moore Capital has some $15 billion under management and was set up by American hedge fund manager Louis Bacon more than 20 years ago. Bacon is now estimated to be worth $1.7 billion and the world's 707th-richest person.