Eisler Capital, the self-described "intellectually honest" hedge fund founded by ex-Goldman Sachs trader Edward Eisler, which has Sam Wisnia, ex-Goldman and Deutsche Bank strat, as its deputy chief investment officer, has parted company with some portfolio managers (PMs). In a largely overlooked interview earlier this year, Wisnia spoke about why the fund isn't for everyone.
Bloomberg reported yesterday that Eisler has lost 10 portfolio managers in "recent days", alongside the various others who left earlier this year. Bloomberg reported previously that the earlier exits were the result of disagreements with Wisnia over investment strategy.
In an interview with
podcast 'Resonanz Spotlight' in May, Wisnia said Eisler has a specific culture and that it doesn't suit everyone. “We are definitely not a culture where people are left alone," said Wisnia. "If your culture is just hiring PMS and leaving them alone, that’s a perfectly valid culture, but it’s just very different to our culture.”
Because of this, Wisnia told the podcast: “You will see a self-selection of PMs in the market that will be happy to join us and those that are not.” He added that portfolio managers who simply want to be "left alone," given a fund's capital and financial resources, and to receive a high payout, without being asked any questions probably won't want to work for Eisler.
Eisler declined to comment for this article.
Eisler has a large team of strats who work with Wisnia, many of whom have been with him since his time at Deutsche Bank and beyond. Wisnia said on the podcast that his team use factor models to help Eisler's portfolio managers optimize their investments within a defined set of constraints. Portfolio managers need to be open to discussing the optimization of their strategies within these constraints, said Wisnia.
Giuseppe Paleologo, the dry but ebullient incoming head of
quant research at Balynasy also revealed earlier this month that portfolio managers don't always take kindly to being told what to do by quants whose factor models challenge their reasoning. "Every PM believes they have amazing skills," said Paleologo. It's the job of the quant researcher/strat give the portfolio manager "a more sophisticated analysis of their own performance," he suggested. That's fine, unless the sophisticated analysis reveals that the performance wasn't as good as the portfolio manager presumed.
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