After posting strong returns in 2008 and 2009, Hutchin Hill Capital, founded by former SAC Capital Advisors quant chief Neil Chriss in late 2007, is marketing to outside investors for the first time since launching. The fund, Hutchin Multi-Strategy, launched in July 2008 with $300 million from the Meritage Fund, Renaissance Technologies founder Jim Simons’ $7 billion family office, which also manages money for several Renaissance Technologies partners.
Once he launched the firm, Chriss immediately closed Hutchin Hill to outside investors. The firm manages $400 million and is hoping to reach $1 billion, according to a source close to the firm. Hutchin Multi-Strategy invests in all liquid markets, including equities, credit and currencies. The fund gained 13% in 2008 after launching that July and rose 17% in 2009. Throughout 2008, the fund benefited from its focus on remaining highly hedged and having extremely low exposure and correlation to the markets. Officials at Hutchin Hill declined to comment.
Chriss first met Simons on the board of Math for America, a New York foundation that promotes math education in New York City schools. “I don’t think there’s anyone out there close with both Stevie Cohen and Jim Simons,” said the source. “They’re both geniuses but with different styles. Neil is the bridge between those two styles.”
Chriss is one of the world’s most seasoned quants. He is one of 25 quantitative professionals profiled in the 2007 book “How I Became a Quant,” which revealed that Chriss learned computer programming at 11 years old. He earned a Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Chicago and in 1998 joined Goldman Sachs’s Quantitative Strategies Group, where he became a portfolio manager and ran a volatility arbitrage book for the firm’s Global Alpha Fund. Chriss left Goldman in 2000 to found iCor Brokerage, a derivatives trading firm that was later sold to Reuters. In 2003, Steve Cohen hired Chriss to build a quantitative trading desk at SAC. The division generated strong returns and, at its peak, ran two-thirds of the SAC Multi-Strategy fund’s assets. Chriss left in early 2007 to form Hutchin Hill.
—Suzy Kenly
See also: Renaissance backs former SAC manager