- A portfolio manager has left Folger Hill, a fund that has struggled since it launched two years ago.
- Folger Hill was started by billionaire investor Steve Cohen's former chief operating officer, Sol Kumin, and Todd Rapp, previously of Highfields Capital.
- The portfolio manager who left, Patrick Saunders, rejoined D. E. Shaw in a role he held before Folger Hill. Two analysts and a technologist also recently left Folger Hill's US offices.
- Folger Hill has made several hires, mostly in Asia, meanwhile.
A hedge fund started by Steve Cohen's former chief operating officer has seen a shakeup in staffing.
Patrick Saunders, healthcare portfolio manager for Folger Hill Asset Management, rejoined $42 billion D.E. Shaw on Tuesday in a role he previously held, Business Insider earlier reported.
Saunders is one of the latest staffers to leave Folger Hill. At least 15 US-based staffers have left the startup over recent months following performance concerns and a dwindling asset base, according to Business Insider reporting.
Other recent Folger Hill departures, which have not been previously reported, include industrials analyst Alex Vecchio, who left in July and had worked for Ryan Novak, the industrials portfolio manager who is now at Man GLG, a division of British giant Man Group. Another analyst, Andrew Coleman, and Danny Heuser, a technologist, also have left.
Meanwhile, Folger Hill has made several hires over recent weeks:
- Chris Morse - analyst in tech in Boston from Piper Jaffray & Co.
- Colin Egan - a Boston research associate in media and telecoms, who previously worked at Eaton Vance
- Ruth Yong - Compliance Officer and Office Manager for Singapore office, formerly with Asset Management One Singapore
- Yavanna Lau - operations in Hong Kong
- Yohsuke Kobayashi - analyst in Hong Kong, formerly at Nomura Asset Management
- Shinya Yamada - analyst in Hong Kong, former analyst at Credit Suisse Securities Japan
- Josee Wong - human resources in Asia, former head of Human Capital Asia at Standard Advisory Asia Limited
Folger Hill Asset Management gained 3.7% after fees in the first half of this year in its flagship US fund, documents previously reviewed by Business Insider showed. Longer term, the fund lost 17.1% after fees from its launch in March 2015 through June this year, according to investor documents previously reviewed by Business Insider.
Folger Hill launched two years ago and was founded by Sol Kumin, Steve Cohen's former chief operating officer at SAC Capital.
With global expansion plans, Folger Hill attracted the backing of big-name Wall Street groups like Leucadia National Corp., which encompasses the investment bank Jefferies Group, and Schonfeld Strategic Advisors, which backed the hedge fund's Asia unit.
After assets tumbled last year, Kumin started a search to raise $300 million to $400 million with a lockup of several years. The search is ongoing, people familiar with the situation said.
Last year, assets dropped to a low of about $600 million from a peak of $1 billion earlier in 2016.