When Izzy Englander's Millennium and Jain Global announced an exclusivity deal less than two years after its buzzy launch, the industry expected a big shake-up.
A roughly a month since the deal was announced, the disruption seems to be limited to one corner of the firm.
While the bulk of the firm's investing businesses are operating as normal and back office staff have been told they are guaranteed compensation through the end of 2026, the firm's fundamental equities unit's fate is uncertain.
Led by former Citadel portfolio manager Townie Wells, the stockpicking unit has struggled to get off to a good start this year, in part due to broader market turbulence. Bobby Jain, who founded the firm in 2024 with $5.3 billion, was spending more time with the unit at the start of the year than with other areas of the business, a person close to the former Millennium executive said.
The unit has lost at least four portfolio managers this year, and Wells' future is also up in the air, three people close to the firm said. Jain Global is evaluating the overall group as the firm plans its next stage. Wells could stay in his current role, and a final decision has not yet been made, these people said.
The four portfolio manager departures include:
- Former Citadel PM Michael Scheer, who is joining Walleye
- Former Millennium PM Costas Constantinides
- Former D1 investor Evan Fiedler
- Niels Heilmann, who traded for Millennium portfolio company Elion Investments for more than a decade before joining Jain
The announced deal, though, has helped the unit retain a leader, a person close to Jain Global said. Adam Wangner, the firm's head of linear equities risk, was expected to leave but is now staying.
In April, Jain Global surprised the hedge fund world by announcing it was returning money to investors and striking a deal to invest exclusively for the $87 billion hedge fund giant Millennium.
The proposed tie-up was negotiated on the Millennium side primarily by the firm's president, Ajay Nagpal, a person familiar with the negotiations told Business Insider, and would prevent Jain Global from raising external capital into its flagship multistrategy fund. The deal is set to close in the third quarter. The two firms declined to comment.
With six offices and over 400 employees — half of whom are investment professionals — Jain will retain its independence while gaining access to Millennium's platform and resources.
The manager was running roughly $6 billion in external capital from backers, including the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and wealth platforms at banks like Goldman Sachs and UBS. Given Jain's tenure as chief investment officer at Millennium from 2016 to 2022, it was one of the most closely watched launches in industry history. Thanks in part to the cost of proven money-making talent, the firm struggled to produce consistent net returns, with fees consuming the vast majority of its trading gains over its nearly two years of investing.
Jain still plans to add 15 portfolio managers to its roster of more than 200 investing professionals this year. So far in 2026, it has reeled in quant trader Yaming He, formerly of Two Sigma, and Singapore-based stockpicker Alexander Han from Point72, among others.
Alex Morrell contributed to this report.
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Bradley Saacks covers hedge funds and other asset managers for Business Insider from New York. He first wrote about the multi-trillion-dollar industry for Business Insider from New York in late 2018, after spending two years covering mutual funds for the Financial Times' trade publication, Ignites.He left Business Insider for a little over a year, starting in mid-2022, and worked as a business reporter for Semafor, a media startup. He rejoined Business Insider in 2023, this time in the publication's London office, and has since relocated back to New York. A graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's School of Media and Journalism, he was the recipient of the O.J. Skipper Coffin Award, which is given to the top graduating senior in the reporting track.During his time at Business Insider, he has broken news on the biggest names in hedge funds, including Paul Singer's Elliott Management, Ken Griffin's Citadel, Seth Klarman's Baupost Group, and more. He is interested in telling stories about the people behind the scenes who are driving big changes at the biggest firms. He can be reached on WhatsApp and Signal at +1 919 816 5537.Notable stories include:
- 'Trading too much and not investing enough': Dmitry Balyasny on why he's remade the hedge fund's equities team
- Why Gordon Singer is more powerful than ever at his father's $70 billion firm
- Jain Global, the most anticipated new hedge fund in years, is about to make its debut. An architect of the manager explains how it will be different.
- How $65 billion Marshall Wace is turning into the hedge funds it's criticized
- How ExodusPoint — the biggest hedge fund launch in history — continues to amass billions despite lackluster returns
- Inside the day-trader revolution that rocked the nation last year — and how it's changed the way Wall Street does business
- Meet Jim Mooney, the most powerful man you never heard of at $31 billion Baupost and heir apparent to the value-investing titan Seth Klarman
- Inside the Chicago hedge fund turf war between billionaire Ken Griffin and Dmitry Balyasny
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