Bloomberg – Vikram Pandit and John Havens, former top executives at Morgan Stanley, plan to open a hedge fund next month after raising at least $2 billion from investors, said three people with knowledge of the decision.
Old Lane LLC will invest in areas ranging from the energy markets to infrastructure projects in India, said the people, who declined to be identified because the New York-based firm’s plan isn’t public. Pandit and Havens, both 49, left Morgan Stanley a year ago during a management shakeup that led to Chief Executive Officer Philip Purcell being replaced by John Mack.
Pandit and Havens built Morgan Stanley’s equity trading unit into one of the top two on Wall Street, alongside Goldman, before they departed in protest. Old Lane is the second-biggest hedge fund to start up this year, after Boston-based Convexity Capital Management LP, founded by Jack Meyer, former investment chief of Harvard University’s endowment.
“A disproportionate amount of money is being raised from investors chasing premium launches,” said Robert Schulman, who’s head of Tremont Capital Management Inc., a Rye, New York- based money-management and research firm.
Pandit, Havens and Rebecca Weissburg, Old Lane’s office manager, declined to comment.
Wall Street executives are attracting billions to hedge funds, which have the highest fees in the money management industry. Hedge funds typically charge customers an annual management fee of about 2 percent and take a 20 percent cut of any profits. Eric Mindich, 38, formerly co-head of equities at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., took in $3.5 billion in 2004 for New York-based Eton Park Capital Management LP.
