The capital in RenTech's flagship fund is 100% from the employees of Rentech. These guys are managing their own money. So the idea they're screwing customers on it is false, they are the customer. I think they have some other funds as well, but not the flagship Medallion fund.
I did IT at a Wall Street investment bank. Jim Simons and these math and CS guys at Ren Tech made a paradise for math and CS people over there. At investment banks you make money for heirs, and as IT are treated like garbage, and their IT and quant operations are garbage at investment banks (relative to hedge funds). Rentech, DE Shaw etc. did quant math, IT infrastructure etc. right and are kicking investment banks ass. Rentech manages employee capital instead of handing it to heirs and underpaying IT and treating IT like shit and having a shitty IT infrastructure like even the top investment banks often do. So these hedge funds are demonized by traditional Wall Street, who are trying to hang some populist halo around the criticism. It would have to be a populist or liberal/soc-dem criticism, because it's certainly not some kind of Marxian criticism. Marx explained how exploitation happened in capitalism, and it's not by a bunch of machine learning gurus managing their own money figuring out how to
trade commodities better than Wall Street investment banks who manage the money of heirs.
Nice username. I thought all these things because I never heard the other side of the story, now I'm not sure what I think.
These guys aren't sitting around by themselves making money in a vacuum, they're also allegedly engaging in illegal and/or unethical financial fuckery, for lack of a better term, and obviously spending money on politicians which may or may not mean anything at all.
Before any bias is expressed against motherjones, all I want to say is that these two articles are the only even quasi-critical voices I have seen, which also points out the timing and circumstances that surrounded the publication of the article that enamored me of James Simons: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/08/science/a-billionaire-math...
Anyway, everything is grey and nothing is black and white. Just wanted to put something on the other side of the scale.
If they are providing their customers at least 10x that value then what's the problem? Customers decide, or do we want to go back to the Middle Ages and leave decisions up to kings? One way or the other somebody is going to manage huge wealth, I prefer the first because in this case at least that somebody is not there because of born rights.
By the way, want to lower salaries of hedge fund managers? Make great startups that: 1. provide serious automated financial tools for investors; 2. make this financial stuff so that it can be used by everybody on the planet, not only by US currency holders
If it was a level playing field then what you said is true, i.e. provide better services in the asset management space. However, the reality is more complicated.
Firstly, financial education. How many asset managers like pension funds want to put part of their portfolios in hedge funds even when their returns are sub-par. The industry is very opaque in terms of disclosing returns, and many indices are biased upward due to survivorship bias.
Secondly, the lobbying to keep the taxes at a low, and other tax loopholes, onshore and offshore, mean that the profits made by the industry are taxed lower than what would be made by a manufacturing firm.
The industry as a whole will never be truly free-market due to many regulations and laws, so your point about having a universal solution for everyone to invest across borders is probably not going to be realized in the next several decades at least.
I don't believe a single hedge fund manager can personally contribute $5 billion per year in value. Some of the people in this list managed funds that lost money, so they obviously didn't.
I think the concern is over what you mean by “providing”: some would say that it seems unlikely they actually create that value as much as they confiscate it.
Preventing that was what made kings popular, until we improved on who should control the police.
I think the problem is that they generate so much money without making anything of value. They just shift money around and with that, extract money from the economy, money that represents value generated by someone who made something that other people gladly pay for.
I'm probably just to poor at economics but if someone could explain the use and benefit to society of these hedge fund managers, that would be great. If they simply extract value by some complicated process of obfuscation, we should vote for a system where they don't exist.
Not close to 10x, according to the article he took as a salary about 1/3 of the returns from all investor capital. The fund returned 14.3% last year and he was paid 6.8%
What value? Numbers in balance sheets is not value, per se, and optimizing those numbers is also not necessarily value. Take things down to their bare essentials, what's the economic utility of hedge fund managers? Are they optimizing investment? Are they doing investment at all? Are they helping to ensure liquidity in the market? Are they helping to ensure the markets operate smoothly? Are they extracting rents? Are they merely shifting wealth?
It's funny you mention the middle ages, because there are a lot of parallels there, I think. Tax collectors would bring in massive wealth for their employers, but would anyone say that such wealth was fairly and honestly come by? Middle ages governments were rarely consensual and most of their expenditures were not to the benefit of those they ruled. I think if you look at hedge funds you'll see a lot of similarities. A lot of their wealth comes not from investments or from facilitating economic activity. Rather, a lot of it can be characterized as extractive and even exploitative.
Hedge funds are not just about managing huge amounts of wealth, painting them as such is a diversion. They are about using money to extract even more money from whatever "market" it is possible to do so, and at whatever cost.
Worse yet, hedge funds have so corrupted and influenced our governments that they've been able to socialize their losses during economic crashes, without being forced to socialize their gains during booms. Additionally, some of the largest wealth transfers in history are occurring right now through stock buyback programs, which substantially benefit stock owners and especially hedge funds.
Meanwhile, hedge funds are not actually producing substantial returns for their investors, most do worse than index funds. So somehow they manage to be both really bad for democracy, bad for a lot of the things they poke their fingers in (where they look at only the bottom line and attempt to extract the most dollars in the shortest time frame, the worst characterization of the influence of the stock market), and yet they are still bad at providing a decent RoI. But hedge fund managers pay themselves well, certainly. It's little more than the same old problem of oversized corporate executive pay scaled up. Whether they perform well or poorly the refrain is always "oh, but here you are dealing with a different class of people, the CEO class or the hedge-fund-manager class, and they are oh so unusual and special that they demand a higher caliber of pay even when they fail, because you see if you were to get some schlub off the street to do the work they would have cocked it up far worse, so you should be thankful". This despite all evidence imaginable to the contrary. It's simply a matter of elitism and classism run amok, which might as well be a new type of aristocracy.
(As for your last comment, this is already done, the only "automated financial tools" most investors need is an index fund, which not only outperforms almost all hedge funds it also outperforms most other types of active investments.)
The title is incorrect and very misleading. This is not "salary" for hedge fund managers, it's total income.
I couldn't find the exact breakdown, but for the guys at the top of the list, most of the income is not compensation for being a manager, it's returns for the money they had invested in their own funds. It's not a coincidence that the guys at the top of the list are the ones that manage funds that had a good 2015.
To see a better breakdown look at the 2016 rich list at
In a year when roughly half of all hedge funds lost money, a
number of frequent Rich List members are conspicuously missing
from the ranking because their funds finished in the red.
So for guys previously in this list their "salary" for 2016 was negative.
Owners get paid more than managers. The controlling shareholders of certain banks will most certainly make more annually from dividends than the management team running these companies.
What's the controversy here? They make what their clients are willing to pay them. Now whether they should be taxed at a higher rate is a legitimate issue but there is nothing wrong with "25 people making 12.94 billion"
"Hedge fund manager Kenneth C. Griffin made $1.7 billion"
"Mr. Griffin’s firm, Citadel, has grown from a hedge fund that managed family and pension fund money into a $25 billion firm"
"Citadel’s flagship Kensington and Wellington hedge funds returned 14.3 percent over 2015."
It might be true but seems incredible, that would mean he personally took 6.8% of the entire fund's capital as a salary. Not salary of course but carried interest - he only has to pay capital gains tax rate because Wall street.
The deal is often 2 and 20. 2% of the invested funds and 20% of the earnings. That lines up okay with your numbers (say he owns a big chunk of the fund, that would make up some of the difference).
Fun fact: Mr. Griffin made more than, for example, the total size of 3D modeling market http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/PressReleases/3d-mapping.as...
(I'm not sure of the quality of the referenced link so if someone has better information please correct me)
Pension funds are a clear wealth transfer from the working class to HF/PE managers without any benefits to the working class.
Fee adjusted returns are worse than index funds.
HF/PE managers dodge taxes through the carried interest loophole which the "socialist" Obama refuses to close despite having the power to do so without enacting new legislation.
If it was indeed paid as "salary", the taxes are huge. No sane hedge fund manager would to this (except that there are some other direct benefits of doing this). There are many ways of avoiding paying salary (and therefore taxes).
(Making money is great, I don't see anything controversial in it as long as nobody's hand is forced).
Isn't this an issue of paying capital gains tax instead of income tax?
The amount of money they earn is arbitrary. If the deal is 2/20, and the manager performs (hence the 20), they're rewarded. That seems fair to me. If you think 20% is too high, find a different fund?
Their tax rates should be significantly more progressive. Before the 1980s this headline would be unthinkable. Watching the apologists here justify this is Mark Twain Americana at its finest.
Edit. I know snark is not the HN way, but when faced with the total obscenity that is 25 people exploiting pension funds to the tune of $12.94 billion in one year it is more than I can stomach.
[+] [-] balance_factor|10 years ago|reply
I did IT at a Wall Street investment bank. Jim Simons and these math and CS guys at Ren Tech made a paradise for math and CS people over there. At investment banks you make money for heirs, and as IT are treated like garbage, and their IT and quant operations are garbage at investment banks (relative to hedge funds). Rentech, DE Shaw etc. did quant math, IT infrastructure etc. right and are kicking investment banks ass. Rentech manages employee capital instead of handing it to heirs and underpaying IT and treating IT like shit and having a shitty IT infrastructure like even the top investment banks often do. So these hedge funds are demonized by traditional Wall Street, who are trying to hang some populist halo around the criticism. It would have to be a populist or liberal/soc-dem criticism, because it's certainly not some kind of Marxian criticism. Marx explained how exploitation happened in capitalism, and it's not by a bunch of machine learning gurus managing their own money figuring out how to trade commodities better than Wall Street investment banks who manage the money of heirs.
[+] [-] PostOnce|10 years ago|reply
These guys aren't sitting around by themselves making money in a vacuum, they're also allegedly engaging in illegal and/or unethical financial fuckery, for lack of a better term, and obviously spending money on politicians which may or may not mean anything at all.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/10/hedge-fund-taxes...
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/05/hedge-fund-hedge...
Before any bias is expressed against motherjones, all I want to say is that these two articles are the only even quasi-critical voices I have seen, which also points out the timing and circumstances that surrounded the publication of the article that enamored me of James Simons: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/08/science/a-billionaire-math...
Anyway, everything is grey and nothing is black and white. Just wanted to put something on the other side of the scale.
[+] [-] kfk|10 years ago|reply
By the way, want to lower salaries of hedge fund managers? Make great startups that: 1. provide serious automated financial tools for investors; 2. make this financial stuff so that it can be used by everybody on the planet, not only by US currency holders
[+] [-] tinkerrr|10 years ago|reply
Firstly, financial education. How many asset managers like pension funds want to put part of their portfolios in hedge funds even when their returns are sub-par. The industry is very opaque in terms of disclosing returns, and many indices are biased upward due to survivorship bias.
Secondly, the lobbying to keep the taxes at a low, and other tax loopholes, onshore and offshore, mean that the profits made by the industry are taxed lower than what would be made by a manufacturing firm.
The industry as a whole will never be truly free-market due to many regulations and laws, so your point about having a universal solution for everyone to invest across borders is probably not going to be realized in the next several decades at least.
[+] [-] Scarblac|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] akie|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bertil|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] teekert|10 years ago|reply
I'm probably just to poor at economics but if someone could explain the use and benefit to society of these hedge fund managers, that would be great. If they simply extract value by some complicated process of obfuscation, we should vote for a system where they don't exist.
[+] [-] asmithmd1|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] balance_factor|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] barrkel|10 years ago|reply
Instead, we look at supply and demand. How many people could do a similar job?
[+] [-] InclinedPlane|10 years ago|reply
It's funny you mention the middle ages, because there are a lot of parallels there, I think. Tax collectors would bring in massive wealth for their employers, but would anyone say that such wealth was fairly and honestly come by? Middle ages governments were rarely consensual and most of their expenditures were not to the benefit of those they ruled. I think if you look at hedge funds you'll see a lot of similarities. A lot of their wealth comes not from investments or from facilitating economic activity. Rather, a lot of it can be characterized as extractive and even exploitative.
Hedge funds are not just about managing huge amounts of wealth, painting them as such is a diversion. They are about using money to extract even more money from whatever "market" it is possible to do so, and at whatever cost.
Worse yet, hedge funds have so corrupted and influenced our governments that they've been able to socialize their losses during economic crashes, without being forced to socialize their gains during booms. Additionally, some of the largest wealth transfers in history are occurring right now through stock buyback programs, which substantially benefit stock owners and especially hedge funds.
Meanwhile, hedge funds are not actually producing substantial returns for their investors, most do worse than index funds. So somehow they manage to be both really bad for democracy, bad for a lot of the things they poke their fingers in (where they look at only the bottom line and attempt to extract the most dollars in the shortest time frame, the worst characterization of the influence of the stock market), and yet they are still bad at providing a decent RoI. But hedge fund managers pay themselves well, certainly. It's little more than the same old problem of oversized corporate executive pay scaled up. Whether they perform well or poorly the refrain is always "oh, but here you are dealing with a different class of people, the CEO class or the hedge-fund-manager class, and they are oh so unusual and special that they demand a higher caliber of pay even when they fail, because you see if you were to get some schlub off the street to do the work they would have cocked it up far worse, so you should be thankful". This despite all evidence imaginable to the contrary. It's simply a matter of elitism and classism run amok, which might as well be a new type of aristocracy.
(As for your last comment, this is already done, the only "automated financial tools" most investors need is an index fund, which not only outperforms almost all hedge funds it also outperforms most other types of active investments.)
[+] [-] danieltillett|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] toth|10 years ago|reply
To see a better breakdown look at the 2016 rich list at
http://www.institutionalinvestorsalpha.com/Article/3552805/T...
Note the following paragraph:
So for guys previously in this list their "salary" for 2016 was negative.[+] [-] iconjack|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] qaq|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] charlesdm|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] abhi3|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] asmithmd1|10 years ago|reply
"Mr. Griffin’s firm, Citadel, has grown from a hedge fund that managed family and pension fund money into a $25 billion firm"
"Citadel’s flagship Kensington and Wellington hedge funds returned 14.3 percent over 2015."
It might be true but seems incredible, that would mean he personally took 6.8% of the entire fund's capital as a salary. Not salary of course but carried interest - he only has to pay capital gains tax rate because Wall street.
[+] [-] maxerickson|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] adrianN|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] philh|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] curiousgal|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] metachris|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fsloth|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jgalt212|10 years ago|reply
Pension funds are a clear wealth transfer from the working class to HF/PE managers without any benefits to the working class.
Fee adjusted returns are worse than index funds.
HF/PE managers dodge taxes through the carried interest loophole which the "socialist" Obama refuses to close despite having the power to do so without enacting new legislation.
[+] [-] atemerev|10 years ago|reply
(Making money is great, I don't see anything controversial in it as long as nobody's hand is forced).
[+] [-] cpach|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] charlesdenault|10 years ago|reply
The amount of money they earn is arbitrary. If the deal is 2/20, and the manager performs (hence the 20), they're rewarded. That seems fair to me. If you think 20% is too high, find a different fund?
[+] [-] InclinedPlane|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] redwood|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] whatok|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] danieltillett|10 years ago|reply
Edit. I know snark is not the HN way, but when faced with the total obscenity that is 25 people exploiting pension funds to the tune of $12.94 billion in one year it is more than I can stomach.
[+] [-] whatok|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
[deleted]