The London hedge fund with five investment staff and ~$200m in profits
Once upon a time, macro-focused hedge funds like Brevan Howard and long-short equity focused hedge funds like Marshall Wace were the places to be in London. However, both funds had a challenging 2024. The new most desirable employer might be in credit instead.
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Shiprock Capital Management is a distressed and special situations credit fund based in London's Portman Street. Started in early 2023 by Andrey Pavlichenkov (ex-VR Capital) and Simon Milledge (ex GML Capital), it went from $80m of capital at launch to around $500m in July 2024 to $1bn at year-end.
Bloomberg reported today that Shiprock generated returns of 34.5% last year after fees. Unconfirmed reports from insiders suggest this equated to around $200m in profits.
This is impressive given that Shiprock employs 20 people or fewer and that the investment team is understood to have five or six members. Insiders say Pavlichenkov and Milledge are they two key investment professionals, but the fund also employs Gauthier Robinet, a former Citi associate, Yacine Bourezak, a former director in Credit Suisse's special situations group, and Scarlett Li, a former associate at Rothschild.
Shiprock operates a two and 20 model, in which investors pay a 2% management fee and a 20% performance fee. With $1bn in AUM, this implies that employees will share $88m this year if returns hit 34% again. This is a dramatic step up. In 2023, the fund disclosed that it paid $1m in total remuneration while employing six people.
Unsurprisingly, Shiprock Capital is hiring. It's thought to be looking for juniors as it manages all its new assets. Joining now could be very lucrative indeed.
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