Billionaire Steven Schonfeld poaches a top quant from Glenn Dubin's Engineers Gate to run a new fund
- Steven Schonfeld's hedge fund Schonfeld Strategic Advisors recruited a top quant from Engineers Gate, Ricky Shi, to run a new quant fund, sources tell Business Insider.
- Schonfeld's fund has expanded into Asia and Europe recently, primarily through its acquisition of hedge fund Folger Hill in 2018.
- Quants like Shi are in high demand as traditional stock-picking funds and computer-driven managers are fighting Silicon Valley for this talent.
Ricky Shi is going from working for one billionaire to another.
Shi, the head of supported portfolio managers and a quant trader at Glenn Dubin's Engineers Gate, has been tapped by Steven Schonfeld to run a new quant fund under Schonfeld Strategic Advisors' umbrella, sources tell Business Insider.
Shi joined Engineers Gate, which was founded by Dubin in 2014, as one of the firm's first employees, according to his LinkedIn profile, working as a quant trader and analyst at first. Dubin, who made his fortune off Highbridge Capital which he co-founded with Henry Swieca and eventually sold to JPMorgan. Engineers Gate currently runs more than $2 billion in assets, according to regulatory filings.
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Schonfeld has been looking to grow his eponymous fund recently, after deciding in 2015 to start taking outside capital again. The firm has opened an office in London this year, and purchased rival fund Folger Hill with the hopes of getting more exposure to Asia.
Schonfeld, Engineers Gate, and Shi all declined to comment. Shi's LinkedIn currently states that he is under a non-compete and is no longer working at Engineers Gate.
Shi, who previously worked at Morgan Stanley and received a Ph.D. in machine learning from the University of Chicago, is the type of talent hedge funds are currently fighting each other and Silicon Valley for.
Both fundamental and quant funds have been trying to bring in more people that have historically been attracted to Silicon Valley as the computer-driven funds are in high demand. Even in a poor environment for hedge fund launches, several new quants are slated to launch this year, including Michael Graves, a former top PM at Point72's Cubist, and Jonathan Graham, who ran Citadel's quant unit.
