Britain isn’t buying Steven Cohen’s attempts to get back into the hedge fund business.
The Financial Times reported Thursday that the U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority, which is responsible for the oversight of investment firms, has indicated it doesn’t want Cohen managing other people’s money out of London.
Cohen is currently serving a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ban on managing third parties’ funds after his old hedge fund, SAC Capital Advisors, was sunk by admissions of insider trading in 2013. That ban expires next year.
Cohen has dropped a few hints about returning to the hedge fund business when the ban lapses, but until then he manages his own fortune—estimated at some $11 billion—through a firm called Point72.
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Point72 doesn’t need the FCA’s approval to operate on its own behalf and has already had an office in London since last year. (It has more than 1,100 employees worldwide, according to its website.) The FCA’s approval, both for the structure of the firm and for the senior managers running it, only becomes necessary when firms want to run other people’s money. The FT’s report thus suggests that Cohen has been sounding out the possibility of changing Point72 from a ‘principal’ business into an ‘agent’ one.
The FCA and Point72 both declined to comment.
