Last year was a pretty, pretty sweet one for Balyasny Asset Management’s European operations. Profits rose nearly 24-fold. Pay didn’t quite keep pace, but Dmitry’s boys in Blighty probably aren’t complaining much. Last year, Balyasny spent £122m remunerating its 94 UK employees (after deducting social security payments), which amounts to an average payment of £1.3m ($1.8m) per head. This is generous, even by hedge fund standards, and was an increase of 103% on Balyasny's average London pay for 2019. May you too work at a noted American hedge fund in London. But maybe your hedge fund didn’t quite make as much money as Balyasny. Indeed, maybe your hedge fund even lost money. No matter: The British division of one of America’s leading activist hedge funds paid its staff in London £113.3 million last year despite recording a pre-tax loss after paying a £13.5 million fine in France. The salaries for Elliott Advisors’ workforce of just over 100 people rose by more than 20 per cent in 2020, while its three directors were paid £17.8 million, up from £11.4 million in 2019. Well, in fairness, sometimes it matters. Revenues at Winton Capital Management Ltd plummeted from £141m in 2019 to £66m in 2020. At the same time, the fund fell to a loss of £8m last year, down from £32m one year previously. Headcount was cut in response: employees at the fund went from 230 in 2019 to 220 last year…. As profits at Winton fell in 2020, so did pay. Average compensation per head for Winton's 220 employees - many of whom are researchers and quants - was £185k ($254k) last year, down from £197k in 2019.