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Top Wall Street block trader Andrew Liebeskind has left hedge fund LMR Partners after less than a year, according to people with knowledge of his exit.
Liebeskind had joined the $11bn multi-strategy hedge fund in New York at the end of December last year to lead its equity capital markets division. He was previously head of primary strategies at Surveyor Capital, which is an equity investing part of Ken Griffin’s Citadel, the world’s best-performing hedge fund.
The reason for Liebeskind’s departure is unclear. LMR declined to comment. Liebeskind did not comment.
Block trading is a lucrative corner of equity markets, in which banks auction large stakes in listed companies on behalf of shareholders. It is highly relationship driven: investment banks typically seek to gauge demand for potential deals before they have been made public, while not divulging private information to hedge fund clients.
Liebeskind was one of a group of prominent hedge fund traders whose communications were sought by US authorities as part of a Securities and Exchange Commission probe into block trading practices, according to two people with direct knowledge of a subpoena issued in 2021.
The fact that Liebeskind’s communications were sought by US authorities as part of the probe was public knowledge when LMR hired him. Liebeskind was not accused of any wrongdoing.
As part of this investigation, the SEC charged Morgan Stanley’s former head of the bank’s US equity syndicate, Pawan Passi, with fraud. The bank entered into a non-prosecution agreement with the US attorney’s office in Manhattan, paying a $249mn penalty earlier this year to settle civil and criminal charges.
Passi admitted to misconduct and agreed a deferred prosecution agreement with the US attorney. US authorities ultimately found no wrongdoing beyond Morgan Stanley and Passi.
LMR was founded in 2009 by Ben Levine, Andrew Manuel and Stefan Renold. They received seed capital from Donald Sussman’s Paloma Partners. Manuel left in 2015.
In 2018 Goldman Sachs’ Petershill Partners, which buys minority stakes in alternative asset managers, bought a stake in LMR. Last month Petershill announced it had sold its entire LMR stake back to the firm’s leadership team for a total consideration of up to $258mn.
LMR employs more than 300 people in offices in London, Hong Kong, New York, Zurich, Glasgow, Dubai and Dublin. It adopts a market-neutral approach to trading systematic and discretionary strategies, across a range of markets including equities, fixed income and commodities.
This story was amended to clarify that Liebeskind’s communications were sought by US authorities.
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