Navigating Transitions: High PMs from Eisler’s Wind Down and Their New Ventures

Shutting down a hedge fund is not so simple as turning off the lights and handing the workplace keys to the constructing supervisor.

Trades must be wound down slowly to ensure backers do not lose cash in a hearth sale. Employment contracts with payouts and deferred compensation must be honored. Something price promoting must discover a purchaser.

At $3.2 billion Eisler Capital, the London-based multistrategy fund based by Goldman Sachs veteran Ed Eisler, the agency’s late September letter to buyers about liquidating the agency was simply step one.

The agency had remodeled itself from a macro store right into a fund with dozens of various groups buying and selling their very own specialities and had bold targets. In a dialog with Enterprise Insider at the tip of 2023, Eisler’s COO, Chris Milner, stated the supervisor had elevated head depend by greater than 40% that 12 months and had “quite a lot of assist from our capital companions and the Avenue proper now and do not feel constrained.”

“What we do not wish to do is develop for development’s sake. Towards that, although, we’re an bold group,” Milner stated.

Sadly, 2023 was a excessive level for the agency. The agency made 3% in 2024, trailing its bigger multistrategy friends, as prices mounted. Key moneymakers Adrien Delattre and Lewis Morton left the agency regardless of being named companions on the finish of 2023.

“The problem of attracting and retaining skilled cash managers able to deploying capital at scale inside a value construction acceptable to buyers has grown considerably,” the agency instructed buyers in its letter.

In comparison with the standard fund liquidation, Eisler has the continuing consideration of the business as a consequence of its excessive head depend and a doable sale of a few of the agency’s mental property.

In speaking with backers of the agency, folks near the supervisor, and business consultants, Enterprise Insider has pulled collectively the newest on the agency’s potential sale of its danger system, Photon, the portfolio supervisor rival funds try to rent, and the place a few of the fund’s investing expertise has already landed.

The supervisor declined to remark.

The battle for Eisler’s danger system

Whereas Eisler’s returns lagged behind these of its friends in 2025, with a lack of 1.7% via August, the agency’s danger and analytics system, developed by Eisler and his right-hand man, Sam Wisnia, was recognized all through the business as well-designed. One particular person at a rival fund stated Eisler’s macro background gave the system a singular really feel in comparison with others within the business, which had been made with long-short fairness or quant buying and selling in thoughts.

Multistrategy funds, the sprawling giants which have come to outline this period of the business, are hyper-focused on danger, given the important thing a part of their pitch to massive institutional buyers: We will make cash in any market setting.

Whereas the cutthroat, fast firings for any PM who loses 3% are usually not as frequent as a consequence of the expertise warfare, these companies use a bunch of programs and instruments to watch the exposures and dangers of every buying and selling crew, making certain that nobody portfolio drags down all the fund. Eisler’s Photon is taken into account to be the most effective for monitoring macro dangers.

A number of folks stated the agency has had conversations with funds akin to Verition and Taula Capital about shopping for the system, which is known as Photon. Verition and Taula declined to remark.

Two LPs of the fund instructed Enterprise Insider that they’re annoyed that the cash constructed from the potential sale of the system is not going to be distributed to them, however as an alternative will go to Eisler and Wisnia. These backers really feel entitled to a share of the proceeds from any sale, on condition that their pass-through charges lined the event of Photon.

An individual near the agency stated that Eisler’s authorized paperwork with buyers clearly give the possession of mental property, akin to Photon, to the founder.

The PM everyone seems to be circling

In late 2023, in an effort to maintain prime expertise on the agency, Eisler named 4 new companions. Just a little over a 12 months later, three of them, together with the aforementioned Delattre and Morton, had departed the fund — an ominous signal for the way prime performers considered the supervisor’s future.

The one new associate who stayed with the agency via its closing is now one of the vital coveted potential hires for rivals, in accordance with enterprise growth executives at two totally different multistrategy funds.

Massimiliano Pignatelli is a Milan-based portfolio supervisor who joined Eisler in 2020 after a stint on a buying and selling desk for Macquarie in London. His resume features a decade-long stint at French financial institution Société Générale, the place he was the top of European Ahead Buying and selling, a sort of by-product buying and selling.

Whereas he is labored in several European cities in his profession, together with Paris, the Italy native relocated to Milan whereas at Eisler. The monetary heart in northern Italy has develop into a haven for London’s rich fleeing the UK’s excessive tax regime.

He didn’t reply to requests for remark from Enterprise Insider.

The place the expertise has landed

Pignatelli is way from the one Eisler expertise in demand.

With greater than 250 folks throughout 9 workplaces within the US, Europe, and the Center East, the supervisor had a big employees regardless of its comparatively low asset base.

Regardless of a possible 30% lower to their bonuses in the event that they left the fund instantly, Eisler executives and PMs have already began popping up at different funds. Beneath are a few of the people who’ve already made a transfer, in accordance with media stories, LinkedIn profiles, and business sources.