Goldman Sachs Group Inc. may start its newest stock hedge fund with as much as $10 billion in what would be the biggest debut in the industry's history, two people with knowledge of the fund said. Goldman Sachs Investment Partners, set to open Jan. 1, is being run by traders who previously worked on the New York-based company's proprietary equity desk. They are led by Raanan Agus, 40, who had been head of the bank's principal strategies group since 2003, and Kenneth Eberts, 41, who had been in charge of U.S. investments since 2003. The equity trading group, once overseen by former U.S. Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, has spawned at least six multibillion-dollar hedge funds, including those managed by Richard Perry, Daniel Och and Eric Mindich. They all left Goldman to start their own firms. ``It's a first for Goldman to offer an in-house fund as a way to capture its investment talent,'' said Jeff Tarrant, chief investment officer of New York-based Protege Partners LLC, which farms out money to hedge funds. If Goldman attracts $10 billion, it would surpass the record set last year by Michael McCaffery, former head of Stanford University's endowment, who started his Menlo Park, California-based Makena Capital Management LLC with $7 billion. Andrea Raphael, a Goldman spokeswoman, declined to comment. The people familiar with the fund asked not to be named because it's private. Goldman's Global Alpha fund, which started 2007 with more than $10 billion in assets, lost 37 percent through Nov. 30. Its Global Equity Opportunities fund dropped 23 percent in August, and the company and a group of outside investors shored up the fund with $3 billion in new cash. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aj_gWOy5Bye4&refer=home
Suss------If GS has Giselle as a client and she puts money into the fund, it'll be bearish for ALL US equities. Stay tuned.