Nick Maounis Gets The Amaranth Band Back Together For New Fund By Bess Levin 49 Comments / Oct 15, 2010 at 4:04 PM A few years back, a hedge fund in Greenwich went out of business. Perhaps you’ve heard of it. Was called Amaranth Advisors. Was run by a guy named Nick Maounis. Had this lovable goof of a Canuck named Brian Hunter making natural-gas trades. Brian was always up for a good laugh and one day, on a lark, put on some trades that resulted in the firm losing, I don’t know, like $6.6 billion. It’s was hilarious! Maybe you had to be there, but I’m telling you, it was pant-pissingly funny. Definitely one of the best things to happen to the hedge fund community in a while. Anyway, some people, namely Amaranth clients, who are humorless stiffs, didn’t find the blow up that funny. So even though Maounis who, FYI, has yet to get investors their money, was chomping at the bit to get things going again he had to lay low for a while. He and other members of Team A dispersed and went pretty much radio silent. Maounis told everyone not to contact him, and to instead wait for his signal. And now, the time has come. Maounis has hired his former partner, Manos Vourkoutiotis, to run investments in Canada for his two-year-old hedge fund, according to a letter sent to investors. Vourkoutiotis “will focus primarily on convertible arbitrage, credit trading, long/short equity, and volatility trading within the Canadian market,” Maounis said in the letter. Three of Amaranth’s four partners are now working at Greenwich, Connecticut-based Verition Group LLC fund, which manages $250 million. The Verition fund invests in credit markets, convertible bonds and stocks, including those of companies going through corporate events such as mergers and bankruptcies. It also has a team that manages money using computer models. How great is this?! Just like old times! Sure, not everyone’s back just yet. A few IR girls are unaccounted for and one guy who’s still waiting for the call is Brian Hunter. It’s presumably coming but in the event that doesn’t pan out, who wants to be the next BH? The new shop, dubbed Verition Fund Management LLC, has already hired about 32 employees but they’re still searching for that special someone. Must have an awesome a sense of humor and adventure as Hunt. If that’s you, let me know and I’m happy to pass on your info. (Also please note Verition is currently accepting investments– get in at the ground floor.) Maounis Hires Former Amaranth Colleague for Two-Year-Old Fund in Canada [Bloomberg via FIN] https://dealbreaker.com/2010/10/nick-maounis-gets-the-amaranth-band-back-together-for-new-fund/ http://www.verition.com/leadership.pl https://www.wsj.com/articles/ten-ye...stors-still-waiting-for-money-back-1451524482
The AUM for Verition is wrong by a factor of 10, it's 2.5 yards. In any case, running a portfolio at a fund with an AUM of 2.5 (so they can't be managing more than 250) is a long cry from where they come from. Back of the envelope, average ROC for them would be say 10%, their payout ratio is anywhere from 8 to 12%. So they are taking in 2-3 million between 3 partners, which after expenses and paying their staff is probably 500-750 each. Considering what type of capital they were spinning previously: Edit: Scratch that, just went to their web site - Nick Maonis a fucking principal at Verition. Shit, you have to blow up big to make it bigger type of deal
Brian Hunter lost $50M at Deutsche Bank was labeled immature and unprofessional, yet was able to get a job at Amaranth; this time to lose $6.7B. Nick Maounis completely mismanaged the whole situation at Amaranth and yet is able to raise money at Verition. Boaz Weinstein lost $1.8B at Deutsche Bank and was able to raise money for his fund Saba Capital Management. And all this after his internship at Goldman Sachs which David Tepper labeled as due to his chess skills IE...
As per the book "Hedge Hogs" after danger became apparent but before blowout inevitable, Nick Maounis was told on several occasions to bring in someone with no vested interest in the energy book to pare it down, each time he refused; thus ensuring Amaranth's demise.
As per "Hedge Hogs" in the waning days of Amaranth, Amaranth executive team had to get Brian Hunter and his energy group security because they feared other Amaranth employees might harm them because a portion of bonuses had to be invested with the firm.