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One more Soros farewell
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June 9, 2000: 11:16 a.m. ET
Stock picker Bessent quits hedge fund empire amid reorganization
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - Soros Management, the hedge fund titan recently toppled by bad technology bets, is losing a fourth top-level manager amid the firm's restructuring.
Scott Bessent, a 10-year veteran who most recently ran the global research team in London, announced Thursday he is quitting Soros' hedge fund to start his own investment firm.
"This is consistent with the earlier reorganization announcements," company spokesman Shawn Pattison said, referring to George Soros' statement in April that he was revamping his company to take a more conservative posture.
In October, Bessent, 37, will start a series of funds that will invest primarily in European stocks. Bessent will put in $150 million of his own money and will get an additional $150 million from George Soros and Soros Management, Pattison confirmed.
Bessent's firm, Bessent Capital, expects to raise more than $1 billion from investors before it starts trading Oct. 1. Bessent initially will have eight analysts and three traders, and offices in New York and London.
Bessent is the latest executive to quit Soros Management since April. 
Last week, Soros CEO Duncan Hennes, who was in charge of risk management, announced his last day will be June 30, but that he will remain on board as a consultant until the end of September. Hennes, 43, a former Bankers Trust treasurer, joined Soros last September.
Macro plays are over?
Soros, who became legendary for big bets on currencies, previously focused on exploiting macro-economic trends such the Japanese real estate bust and the creation of the single European currency.
The era of big bets on macro-economic trends probably has come to a close, Bessent said. But good stock picking is here to stay, he added.
"There are a lot of micro trends going on now that lend themselves to a more agile fund," Bessent said.
Soros Management in its heyday had more than $20 billion under management, too big a sum to quickly exploit current investment opportunities, Bessent said. Bessent plans to close his fund when it reaches $1.5 billion in assets.
Bessent, who said he averaged a 30 percent annual compounded return before fees during his time at Soros, expects to invest some of his money in stocks of European chemical, pharmaceutical and airline companies. Some of these companies could be taken over at a premium by European and U.S. competitors as Europe's corporate restructuring and consolidation continues, he said.
More departures coming
In April, the world's largest hedge fund announced that Stanley Druckenmiller, 46, manager of the Quantum Fund for 12 years, and Nick Roditi, 54, manager of the Quota Fund, would step down as the funds have plunged as much as 33 percent this year. Quantum's assets have dropped by about $4 billion.
Last week, Soros' company confirmed more layoffs and resignations are expected by the end of June as the fund revamps its structure. Soros employs about 240 in New York and additional 300 throughout the world.
"We have come to realize that a large hedge fund like Quantum Fund is no
longer the best way to manage money," Soros wrote in a letter to shareholders in April. "Markets have become extremely unstable and historical measures of value at risk no longer apply."
On July 1, Soros will relaunch his flagship fund as the Quantum Endowment Fund, which currently has $6.6 billion in assets.
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Losses started piling up this year for the Soros funds. Quantum Fund,
which had as much as $10 billion in assets in 1998, was down to $6 billion at the end of March, according to Barry Colvin, director of research at Tremont Advisors, another fund researcher in Rye, N.Y.
Quantum Fund and Quota Fund were hit by losses in technology stocks in the last few months since the Nasdaq was rocked with volatility in April. Quantum had been down 22 percent and Quota down 33 percent, according to HedgeFund.net.
Soros Management runs $13 billion in hedge fund assets, which include about $3.5 billion in private equity funds. 
-- from staff and wire reports
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