(Bloomberg) — Hedge fund Walleye Capital is eliminating about a dozen employees, including the head of its global discretionary macro business, as it restructures operations, people familiar with the matter said.
Raj Sethi, the head of global macro and fixed income, is leaving, said the people, who asked not to be identified because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly. The 12 departures represent roughly 4% of the fund’s overall staff of about 340 employees, and the firm has hired about 60 people this year, one of the people said.
Sethi was appointed to the role last year as Walleye made a string of hires to bulk up its trading capabilities. The firm has since pulled back from the discretionary macro business and is now looking to grow its better-performing systematic business instead, the people said.
Walleye, led by Chief Investment Officer Will England, is up 4% overall through the first few months of the year, and the systematic macro business has been one of its strongest performers in the last 18 months, one person said. The firm is building out the unit, which uses computer-driven trading to make fixed-income bets, and recently hired former Brevan Howard portfolio manager Arnaud de Bevy to lead it.
Founded by Irvin Kessler in 2005 as an options market-making firm, Walleye started managing outside capital in 2017. Its growth accelerated in the past four years, with assets under management swelling by more than $4 billion.
Multistrategy hedge funds such as Walleye piled into the world of commodities as trading profits boomed after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine created supply dislocations and sent volatility surging. But 2023 was a more challenging year as prices stabilized.
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Other traders Walleye had hired, including Rahul Dhir, a refined-products trader who worked at Millennium Management, also left recently, the people said.
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