Nice work if you can get it – Marshall Wace, the $10.76bn hedge fund, shared £83.6m between its 15 members this year after a surge in profits on 2012.
The hedge fund, one of Europe’s largest, has just filed its 2013 accounts on Companies House and it’s been a decidedly better year. It posted pre-tax profits of £84.3m, up from £47.3m in 2012, and earmarked the vast majority to be shared among its members. Last year, all profits were divided among senior staff. Performance fee income also jumped from £60.6m to £104.4m.
This is not, however, the whole picture. £57.6m was paid to Marshall Wace Asset Management, the body by which the bulk of the hedge fund’s 100 staff are officially employed. This means that £26m was divided among the partners, amounting to an average payment of £1.73m. Both founding members, Paul Marshall and Ian Wace have personal fortunes of £275m, down from £315m in 2012, according to the Sunday Times Rich List.
Generally, pay for senior hedge fund professionals has been declining. Chief investment officers took home an average of $2.28m last year – with up to $2m of this paid as a bonus – while CEOs earned $2.27m, according to research by Infovest21.
Marshall Wace employs just 36 people in FCA regulated positions, but has been expanding throughout 2013 and has hired six new front office staff.
Its assets under management have increased from £6.58bn in June last year to £10.76bn at the same point in 2013, according to Hedge Fund Journal’s Europe50 rankings.
This year, it entered new territory, buying a controlling stake in peer-to-peer lending firm Exchange Associates in October.