How audacious London debt trader Hamza Lemssouguer came unstuck
Arini Capital Management went from start-up to Mayfair mainstay in four years. Now it is fighting to hold on to its bets
After four years of remarkable returns and rampant growth, Arini Capital Management’s charismatic founder Hamza Lemssouguer decided earlier this year that his hedge fund’s 6,400-square-foot Mayfair office was no longer fit for purpose.
The 36-year-old trader’s penchant for concentrated and self-described “contrarian” bets on the debt of struggling companies had propelled Arini from a $1bn hedge fund start-up to a $22bn investment firm diversified across both public and private credit.
In need of a new home to accommodate its grand ambitions, Arini swooped on the sprawling former London office of $1tn private capital giant Apollo Global Management in June, agreeing to lease all eight floors and the basement of the 40,000-square-foot building a stone’s throw from Mayfair’s Hanover Square.
But in the few short months since striking the trophy office deal, the swashbuckling trading style that fuelled Lemssouguer’s rise has ensnared his firm in a brutal sell-off in the riskiest reaches of corporate debt markets.
Arini’s $7bn flagship fund is now nursing losses for the year of over 26 per cent, with some of its largest positions in the debt of companies that are teetering on the brink of restructuring or even bankruptcy.