Steve Cohen's new hedge fund will reportedly have an army of investigators to snoop on traders' chats and calls
- Steve Cohen is planning a comeback to the hedge fund world, several years after shutting down his last fund in 2014 amid a lengthy insider-trading investigation.
- His new firm, Stamford Harbor Capital, will reportedly feature a 50-person team of investigators who will snoop on traders' calls, chats, and emails to flag suspicious behavior.
Hedge fund legend Steve Cohen is planning a highly watched comeback, and his new firm will feature an army of internal investigators who will try and make sure traders don't run afoul of the law.
It's not yet clear just how much money Cohen will manage at Stamford Harbor Capital outside of his own $10 billion-plus fortune - reports vary, but it's expected to be at least a couple billion - but it's clear he's trying to steer clear of the regulatory scrutiny that proved the downfall in 2014 of his previous fund SAC Capital, which had a record of astonishing returns but also the legacy of an ugly insider trading investigation.
Bloomberg reports that Cohen's new launch will include a 50-person "command center" staffed with compliance officers who will monitor traders in real time, listening in on calls and scouring emails for suspicious behavior.
Stamford Harbor is looking to hire analysts for its "Intelligence Team" with five to 10 years of experience as investigators or working in the US intelligence community, according to the report.
Cohen has been running a family office called Point72 Asset Management, with some $11 billion of his personal fortune and that of some staffers, since 2014 after he agreed not to manage other people's money and return outside investors' capital.
The agreement came after a years-long insider trading investigation at SAC that ended with a conviction for one of Cohen's subordinates but not him. His failure, according to the SEC, was to supervise those traders as head of SAC Capital. SAC also pleaded guilty and paid a record fine, $1.2 billion, to settle insider-trading claims.
But the ban was lifted, and Cohen is able to raise a new fund as of 2018.