By Svea Herbst-Bayliss
BOSTON (Reuters) – D.E. Shaw’s largest hedge fund gained 19.4% after fees last year, almost doubling its returns from the previous year during a period of wild and unexpected business conditions.
Gains were fueled mainly by systematic and discretionary strategies, said a person familiar with the returns but not authorized to discuss them publicly. The broader stock market index S&P 500 gained 16% last year.
In 2019, the Composite fund, D.E. Shaw’s flagship multi-strategy portfolio, gained 10.4%.
D.E. Shaw invests roughly $55 billion in assets.
Since its launch in 2001, the Composite fund returned an annualized net 11.7% and has never had a down year.
The New York-based hedge fund raised $2 billion in new money for the Composite fund in April, not long after fear about the coronavirus sparked a deep stock market sell-off. Although the fund had stopped accepting new capital in the middle of 2013, the firm raised fresh cash last year when its portfolio managers saw new opportunities in the market.
D.E. Shaw’s Oculus Fund, a more macro-oriented multi-strategy portfolio, gained 25.4% last year, following an 11.7% gain in 2019.
(Reporting by Svea Herbst-Bayliss; Editing by Nick Zieminski)
