NEW YORK (Reuters) - Hedge fund Tourbillon Capital Partners, which has made headlines with negative returns lately, hired former hedge fund manager Ross Berman as its president and chief strategy officer, a spokesman said on Wednesday.
The New York-based firm is run by Jason Karp, who previously worked for Carlson Capital and Steven A. Cohen's SAC Capital before founding his own firm in 2012.
Berman twice ran his own hedge fund and has spent time consulting in the $3 trillion industry over the last two years. He cofounded BAM Capital Management which operated from 2002 to 2010 and later ran Green Owl Capital from 2012 to 2016.
Amy Zipper had been president and chief operating officer at the firm, having joined at the start in 2012.
The move to hire Berman comes at a time when many hedge funds have struggled with returns and raising new capital, prompting some to tap senior executives to focus on business matters and free up the founders and portfolio managers to concentrate on making investments.
Tourbillon dazzled with double-digit returns early in its lifetime but has fallen on tougher times recently when two years of back-to-back losses prompted some investors to ask for money back. The fund now manages roughly $2 billion, down from $3.4 billion at the end of February. Through May, it has lost 1.4 percent, following a 14 percent loss in 2017 and a 9 percent loss in 2016. In 2013, the firm posted its best returns ever with a 21 percent gain.
In the first five months of 2018, the average hedge fund returned 1.5 percent, data from Hedge Fund Research shows.