04/03/2010 Author: Elana Margulies

Schonfeld Group plans allocations increase

Schonfeld Group Holdings, a New York-based proprietary trading and investment firm, will significantly increase its allocations this year.

Andrew Fishman, president, said the firm will deploy capital to quantitative and systematic traders, along with traditional long/short hedge fund managers.

“We think on the quantitative side there is more talent because of what is going on on Wall Street, but in the traditional hedge fund space, the capital raising is more difficult for smaller firms, which presents an opportunity to invest with them,” he said.

Schonfeld is looking for directional black box strategies as well as statistical arbitrage offerings on the quantitative side. By the year’s end, Schonfeld anticipates allocating to 10-15 quantitative managers in total, giving them between 500m each. So far, it has given money to four or five managers.

On the traditional long/short hedge fund side, Schonfeld has allocated to three US-based managers and is expected to add another five or six this year. Typically, it gives each manager 75m.