Amidst last week’s furore over Jain Global, it’s worth remembering that Bobby Jain is not the only man to leave Millennium with aspirations to go it alone. Four years ago, Kurt Baker did the same thing. Four years later, Baker’s hedge fund has come to nothing.
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Baker is admittedly a smaller fish than Bobby Jain. Jain spent seven years at Millennium, and was its co-chief investment officer, based in New York. Baker spent nearly ten years at the hedge fund and was Millennium’s head of business development for Asia, a kind of glorified recruitment role. But Baker still has pedigree – he also spent 20 years as a trader at Morgan Stanley and was previously the US bank’s head of Asian prime broking.
When Baker left Millennium and announced plans for a $3bn hedge fund named 30th Century Partners, people therefore listened. Based in Hong Kong, 30th Century Partners was supposed to start trading in June 2024 with eight to 10 investment teams.
It never happened.
Baker didn’t respond to a request to comment for this article, but sources close to the matter say 30th Century Partners didn’t even launch.
It wasn’t for want of trying. The fund is understood to have recruited 15 portfolio managers (PMs), plus a full management team. However, we understand that Baker could raise only half the capital needed to make the business viable. The aspiration was to keep costs between 3-5% of AUM and to do this by focusing on Asia alone. But investors were wary of an Asia-focused fund at a time of China concerns, and the funds weren’t forthcoming. The launch was jettisoned. Baker’s unwanted PMs dispersed across the market.
After Jain Global – which is not only global, but a full service platform operating across seven different strategies – has gone to Millennium for money, 30th Century Partner’s fate is a reminder that launching your own hedge fund is never easy. The offices, the talent, and the technology stack can be prohibitively expensive unless the AUM reach critical mass. And if you try to keep your costs low by operating in a single region, investors may consider your fund insufficiently diversified.
Life is hard for hedge funds that aspire to be independent in the age of multistrats. The easiest option is going to one of the mega funds for help. Jain did. Baker did not.
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