All eyes were on ExodusPoint Capital Management in the summer of 2018.
Expectations for a fund started by two longtime Millennium executives would have been high no matter what. It wasn't just the eye-popping $8.5 billion in assets the new multimanager had managed to raise — setting a record that stands to this day for the largest fund launch ever. Its cofounder Michael Gelband was seen by some as the heir apparent to billionaire Millennium founder Izzy Englander and his empire after spending close to a decade running the fixed-income side of the business.
But when Englander declined to give Gelband an ownership stake in Millennium, the onetime Lehman Brothers executive abruptly left to start his own fund and compete against his old boss. He and his ExodusPoint cofounder, Hyung Lee, Millennium's equities top gun, recruited several people from their old shop to join the startup.
Rightly or not, the fund was thrust into comparison with the biggest managers in the industry, with potential returns being weighed against those produced at Ken Griffin's Citadel, Steve Cohen's Point72, and, of course, Englander's Millennium.
After close to four years of trading, ExodusPoint can be called both a success and a work in progress.
By many measures, including its ability to raise money and grow, it's proved a raging success. It's managing $13.5 billion, with offices around the world — including London, Paris, Singapore, and Hong Kong — and a headcount close to 700, including 109 portfolio managers, according to an investor update sent at the end of January.
But to the extent that a startup fund unique enough to have close to $14 billion in assets in four years can have direct peers, it has trailed both them and the markets.
ExodusPoint's performance has not been bad; rather, returns have been like a chilly spring day — and to invoke the metaphor favored by "The Wire's" Stringer Bell, "ain't nobody got nothing to say about a 40-degree day."
The fund has also suffered a rash of high-profile exits amid criticisms of its technology and mixed reviews of Gelband's management style.
But insiders say that so far ExodusPoint has performed according to the plan it pitched investors, with an eye on a low-risk launch and a vision for staying power over the long run.
In conversations with more than a dozen employees, industry insiders, and people close to ExodusPoint, Insider got a peek into a firm born of high expectations that's now set on being boringly dependable.