Hedge Fund Heavy Weights keep hiring: JANA Partners, SAC Capital, Och-Ziff Capital and BlueMountain

Date: Thursday, April 22, 2010
Author: Hedgetracker.com

In this week’s hedge fund hiring report, we look at recent additions made by hedge fund industry heavy weights JANA Partners LLC, SAC Capital Management, Och-Ziff Capital Management, and BlueMountain Capital Management. Jana Partners and SAC Capital added to their investment teams, while Och-Ziff and BlueMountain deepened their investor relations and sales capabilities.

San Francisco-based JANA Partners, which manages approximately $1.4 billion in equity assets, has brought on Gian M. Kull as a Managing Director in its New York office. Prior to joining the hedge fund manager, Mr. Kull was a sell-side research analyst at Bank of America Merrill Lynch where he covered banks and brokerage houses. Before joining Merrill, he researched high yield bank loans and private placements at AllianceBernstein. JANA Partners is an event-driven focused manager that was founded in 2001 by Managing Directors Barry S. Rosenstein and Gary Claar.

Steven A. Cohen’s hedge fund, SAC Capital Advisors, has also hired a former member of Merrill Lynch’s sell-side research team. SAC Capital added Lori Helwing last month as a US Economist. While at Merrill, Ms. Helwing was a US Economist on the bank’s Global Economic Research team. Before Merrill, she spent over seven years at Wellington Management Company in similar roles.
Daniel Och’s multi-strategy hedge fund firm, Och-Ziff Capital Management , has added Matt Todd to its hedge fund sales team. Mr. Todd, who will be based in Och-Ziff’s London office, joins Och-Ziff Capital from Stark Investments. While at Stark, he covered Europe, Asia and the Middle East as the head of sales.

Finally, BlueMountain Capital Management has bolstered its marketing and investor relations efforts with the addition of Jennifer Strickland as a Managing Director. Ms. Strickland’s first days on the job were most likely very eventful and exciting, as BlueMountain launched two hedge funds on April 1st. The first fund focuses on distressed securities and the second focuses on securitized investments.

BlueMountain Capital, which was founded in 2003 by CEO & CIO Andrew Feldstein, poached Ms. Strickland from Dallas-based HBK Investments . She spent almost 9 years at HBK Capital and served as the hedge fund’s Director of Investor Relations. Separately, BlueMountain recently promoted Josh Drazen to Managing Director of Investor Relations and Strategy.