Phil McCarten/Reuters
Israel Englander, chairman and CEO, Millennium Partners
- Millennium has added a Paris-based quant team led by former Societe General prop desk head Maxime Kahn.
- Kahn and his team were previously running $300 million of BlueCrest Capital founder Michael Platt's money at Kahn's short-lived hedge fund, 111 Capital.
- Quant talent has been hard to come by, as hedge funds have battled Silicon Valley for the best people.
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Izzy Englander's Millennium has added a team of quants in Paris that were running hundreds of millions of Michael Platt's money, sources tell Business Insider.
Maxime Kahn and his team of quants joined Izzy Englander's fund roughly two years after starting 111 Capital.
Kahn, the former head of the prop desk at Societe Generale, was given $300 million by BlueCrest Capital founder and billionaire Platt in 2017 to start 111 Capital after more than 21 years at the French bank. Kahn's firm was only allowed to run Platt's money for the first 18 months, according to media reports at the time.
Millennium declined to comment, while Kahn and Platt were not able to reached for comment.
Millennium, which notched returns of 5.61% through the end of July, has in the last couple years added big names like former Hutchin Hill founder Neil Chriss and former Nomura and Barclays quant trader Derrick Li to its quant roster.
See more: Balyasny's quant head is out as the $6 billion hedge fund undergoes a strategy revamp
Quants have been some of the most sought-after talent in the hedge fund game, with managers battling not just one another but big-name Silicon Valley companies for talent.
The decision for Kahn and his team to join a larger fund is discouraging news for hopeful hedge fund founders, who have found the appetite for new launches lacking.
Other small funds, like Samantha Greenberg's Margate Capital and Mark Fishman's Aesir Capital, have decided to close shop and join bigger managers - Citadel for Greenberg and ExodusPoint for Fishman - this year instead of operating without the scale and resources Millennium, Citadel, Exodus, and others can offer.