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Millennium Taps Citigroup Veteran to Help Run Fixed Income

By Gregory Zuckerman Dow Jones Newswires

Earlier this year, Israel Englander's $35 billion hedge fund, Millennium Management LLC, suffered the abrupt departure of its head of fixed income, Michael Gelband, an executive some viewed as Mr. Englander's possible heir apparent.

Now, Millennium is hiring Mark Tsesarsky, a 31-year Citigroup Inc. veteran, as its new co-head of fixed income and commodities business, according to people close to the matter. Citigroup announced the news internally this morning, and Millennium told its investors Monday.

At Citigroup, Mr. Tsesarsky was a managing director focused on securitizations. Now he will help run dozens of traders betting on various bond markets, a business that represents about $7 billion of Millennium's assets under management.

The hire comes as Millennium, known for stellar performance and trading teams focused on markets around the globe, deals with challenging markets. The Millennium International Ltd. fund is up 2.6% so far this year, according to an investor, after rising 3.4% in 2016. In the previous three years, the fund rose about 12.5% annually and it has an average annual return of nearly 14% since launching in 1989.

Millennium, which has more than 2,000 employees, is one of the few hedge funds to continue to attract investors in recent years, leading to steady growth, even as much of the hedge-fund industry finds it harder to attract new clients amid poor performance since 2009. The growth comes even though Millennium charges higher fees than most hedge funds.

Mr. Tsesarsky will work with John Anderson, who has been the head of the hedge fund's commodities business after joining the firm two years ago from J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.

Millennium will combine its fixed-income and commodities business. Mr. Tsesarsky and Mr. Anderson will co-head the combined businesses, according to someone close to the matter. Mr. Tsesarsky will be based in New York, while Mr. Anderson is in London.

Write to Gregory Zuckerman at gregory.zuckerman@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 02, 2017 10:12 ET (14:12 GMT)