George Soros’s new investment chief made hedge-fund manager Adam Fisher an offer to join the firm two years ago. He’d get a multimillion-dollar annual bonus or an up-to $1.5 billion investment for a new fund if the job didn’t work out, said people familiar with the matter.
By February, Fisher was gone.
The Soros chief, Dawn Fitzpatrick, had begun cutting how much Fisher could invest when his portfolio was down roughly 2%, frustrating the trader, according to one of the people. Terms of the deal are in dispute and Fisher has threatened to sue, the people said. Fisher declined to comment on his contract or any legal matters.
The soured relationship is one casualty in Fitzpatrick’s short tenure, which so far has been marked by turnover and sweeping change.
The Wall Street Journal spoke to roughly three dozen current and former executives, board members, employees, investment partners and trading counterparties involved with Soros Fund Management about the changes implemented by Fitzpatrick, who became one of the most prominent women on Wall Street with her hiring atop the $25 billion fund in 2017. The former UBS executive has fired traders, taken money from two dozen external hedge funds and made other moves to reshape the firm into one she believes can produce durable returns.
An expanded version of this report appears on WSJ.com.
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