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Hedge Fund Polar Asset Grows Team After Best Returns Since 2020

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(Bloomberg) -- Polar Asset Management Partners, one of Canada’s largest hedge funds, is pressing ahead with an expansion plan that included opening a London office and growing headcount by 15% since the start of last year.

The firm hired people across several strategies, such as commodities, equities, fixed income and credit, over the past year. The names include Anna Litman Correa, who joined as a portfolio manager after more than a decade at Citigroup Inc. trading natural gas, and Mickael Soussant, a commodity risk director, according to people familiar with the matter and their LinkedIn profiles.

Polar’s flagship multistrategy fund returned 8.6% last year, the highest since 2020. The Toronto-based manager, which oversees $6.3 billion of assets, plans to continue expanding its business across all of its strategies and offices, according to the people.  

The buildout aims to drive returns and boost the firm’s technology, risk management and treasury infrastructure, said one person, who requested not to be identified due to the confidentiality of the matter. Polar also hired Nikita Naychukov as director of treasury in October from Toronto-Dominion Bank, according to his LinkedIn profile.  

Roughly 160 people worked at the firm as of last year, including 126 in Canada. The remaining employees are spread between London and New York, one of the people said. The firm added Owen Sharkie as the UK-based director of business development and talent to help expand the London office, which opened in the fall.

Multistrategy hedge funds of all sizes produced mostly double-digit gains in 2024, in what was generally an upbeat year. Major hedge funds have recently piled into commodities in particular as a way to drive profits, amid surging volatility in key areas such as natural gas and power. 

Polar also made a series of hires aimed at growing its infrastructure and expanding its data engineering and data science roles, which includes building out AI products and collaborating with investment teams across asset classes globally. 

Last year, the firm raised $300 million for a fund that invests in so-called synthetic risk transfers, in which banks offload some of their loan exposure in a fast-growing corner of the credit markets.

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