JWM Partners LLC was a hedge fund

Hedge fund

A hedge fund is a private pool of capital actively managed by an investment adviser. Hedge funds are only open for investment to a limited number of accredited or qualified investors who meet criteria set by regulators. These investors can be institutions, such as pension funds, university...

 started by John Meriwether

John Meriwether

John William Meriwether is an American hedge fund executive, seen as a pioneer of fixed income arbitrage.-Education:...

 after the collapse of Long Term Capital Management (LTCM) in 1998. LTCM was one of the most spectacular failures of Wall Street, leading to a bailout of around $4 billion that was provided by a consortium of Wall Street banks. Meriwether started the company with initial capital of $250 million with loyal quants

Quantitative analyst

A quantitative analyst is a person who works in finance using numerical or quantitative techniques. Similar work is done in most other modern industries, but the work is not always called quantitative analysis...

 and traders like Victor Haghani

Victor Haghani

Victor Haghani is an Iranian American financier, one of the founding partners of Long Term Capital Management, a hedge fund which collapsed in 1998, to be eventually bailed out by a consortium of leading banks.- Biography :...

, Larry Hilibrand

Larry Hilibrand

Around 1992, arbitrage trader Larry Hilibrand was synonymous with Wall Street hubris when he became the top-paid trader at Salomon Brothers. As one of the most mathematically astute traders, Hilibrand became the youngest managing director in Salomon Brothers history. Subsequently, he was part of a...

, Dick Leahy, Arjun Krishnamachar and Eric Rosenfeld

Eric Rosenfeld

Eric Rosenfeld was a trader and principal in the Long-Term Capital Management hedge fund, a landmark Wall Street disaster.Prior to LTCM, Rosenfeld was an instructor at Harvard University, and then a trader at the famed Salomon Brothers...

. As of April 2008, the company had around $1.6 billion in management. Eric Rosenfeld left to start his own fund.

Performance

The funds posted gains for several years, but in the first quarter of 2008 posted losses, of 14% in the Global Macro Fund, and 31% in the flagship Relative Value Opportunity bond fund. Together with redemptions, this cut the capital base significantly.

Mission

The fund claimed to use the same model as LTCM with more rigorous and better risk management. It also claimed a leverage

Leverage (finance)

In finance, leverage is a general term for any technique to multiply gains and losses. Common ways to attain leverage are borrowing money, buying fixed assets and using derivatives. Important examples are:* A public corporation may leverage its equity by borrowing money...

ratio of 15 to 1.

Closure

On July 7, 2009 it was announced that the fund would be closed after suffering a loss of 44% in the main fund between September 2007 and February 2009.

External links

• http://www.hoovers.com/jwm-partners/--ID__61105--/free-co-factsheet.xhtml