Brevan Howard Traders Quit Amid Hefty Losses

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Brevan Howard Asset Management LLP continues to see the departure of its senior traders. People familiar with the matter told Jesse Westbrook and Lisa Abramowicz of Bloomberg that two more credit traders left the London-based hedge fund recently. Brevan Howard Asset Management LLP’s biggest hedge fund faced its worst monthly loss in five years in June.

Brevan Howard Traders Quit Amid Hefty Losses

A dozen traders left Brevan Howard

The two executives who left the company over the past few weeks include Wayne Leslie and Jason Feasey. Before joining the second-largest European hedge fund, Leslie headed the European investment-grade credit trading at Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (NYSE:GS). Feasey worked at Bank of America Corp (NYSE:BAC) before joining the hedge fund in 2011.

Sources told Bloomberg that about 12 traders have left the hedge fund in the past three months. Brevan Howard Master Fund declined 2.9% in June and another 0.9% in July. That brought down the hedge fund’s year-to-date gains to 3%. Brevan Howard Master Fund has given an annual average return of 12% since its inception in 2003. It has never reported an annual loss.

Notable departures from Brevan Howard

Over the past few years, traders have left banking giants to join hedge funds like Brevan Howard Asset Management LLP. That’s mainly because of new restrictions on risk taking and caps on bank bonuses after the 2008 financial crisis. In the same exodus, the number of traders at Brevan Howard increased from less than 50 in 2009 to about 80 at the beginning of this year. However, the company recently eliminated about a dozen positions amid concerns that its staff grew too rapidly.

Many of those who left Brevan Howard had been there only for a few months. Dan Mirabella and Milena Todorova, who earlier worked at Galtere Ltd., had joined Brevan Howard in May. They left the hedge fund founded by Alan Howard to join Moore Capital Management LLC a few weeks ago.

Richard Armes, who managed interest rates and Luke Ding, who oversaw a $570 million currency fund have also departed, according to sources. In its July statement, Brevan Howard said that most of the losses incurred in June actually happened in interest rates trading.

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