Millennium Parts Company With Senior Event-Driven Portfolio Manager
A senior portfolio manager at Izzy Englander’s Millennium Management has left the firm, according to people familiar with the matter, after bets on deals and other corporate events went awry.
Millennium, one of the world’s biggest hedge-fund firms, shut down a team led by Omar Sayed earlier this month. Sayed had overseen an events-driven portfolio for Millennium. In that role, he placed wagers on prospective deals such as Tapestry’s planned $8.5 billion takeover of Versace owner Capri Holdings, and Nippon Steel’s attempt to buy U.S. Steel.
Some of Sayed’s bets recently misfired, the people said. Shares in Capri and U.S. Steel have fallen 25% and 20% respectively this year through Wednesday on concerns both proposed takeovers could be blocked.
More broadly, it has been a comparatively thin year for event-driven investing—taking positions tied to coming deals and other corporate events such as bankruptcies and spinoffs.
Event-driven hedge funds have returned an average of 3.4% in 2024, according to indexes compiled by hedge-fund research firm PivotalPath. That contrasts with a 4.5% return for so-called global macro strategies, while funds that bet on and against global stocks are up 7.2%.
New York-based Millennium, which manages more than $63 billion, has developed a reputation for delivering high returns with low volatility and tight risk controls.
A so-called multimanager firm, Millennium splits money across many specialized investment teams—a departure from the traditional hedge-fund model, which relied on the vision of one star trader. Multimanager firms are known for quickly cutting losses by firing underperforming investment teams.
Sayed joined Millennium’s London office in 2020, his LinkedIn profile shows, after previous stints at P. Schoenfeld Asset Management and Deutsche Bank.