Now it has bid the city au revoir. Michael Gelband’s $12 billion multi-strategy fund recently closed its Paris location, according to people familiar with the matter, a process that began in late 2023.
ExodusPoint launched a research outpost in Paris in 2019 and by 2022 it had 20 employees and was angling to ramp up its local presence even further.
The bulk of the investment professionals at the Paris office belonged to a team that reported into London-based quant portfolio manager Stéphane André, the people said. The unit, roughly 15 traders and researchers primarily comprised of ex-employees of French investment bank BNP Paribas, focused on statistical arbitrage but didn’t produce significant returns, one person familiar with the team said.
Some of the employees relocated to the London office, one of the people said.
ExodusPoint removed references to its French operations in a January regulatory filing. The firm now lists eight office locations around the world, including Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Dubai. It scrubbed the reference to its Paris location from its website in December, according to the Wayback Machine.
A representative for the fund declined to comment.
With Intelligence previously reported that the fund’s Paris office had closed.
ExodusPoint now has nearly 646 employees, including 90 investment teams, according to its website. It hired 35 PMs last year, about the same as it hired in 2022 — a difficult year that saw a reduction in employees, investment teams, and investor capital.
Assets shrunk again in 2023 by more than $1 billion, despite reopening to investors, a sign of the more challenging fundraising environment for multi-strategy funds.
ExodusPoint returned 7.3% last year — middle of the pack among its multi-manager peers, which had a down year overall.
ExodusPoint started off 2024 with a 0.3% return during the first month of trading.