BlueCrest Capital Management
BlueCrest Capital Management is a British-American investment management firm founded in 2000 by Michael Platt and William Reeves. Originally launched as a multi-strategy hedge fund, the firm returned external capital in 2015 and converted into a family office. The firm previously spun out its systematic trading arm as Systematica Investments in 2014. The firm maintains office locations in London, New Jersey, Singapore and New York.
History
Bluecrest was founded in 2000 as a hedge fund by Michael Platt and William Reeves who were both previously senior proprietary traders at JPMorgan Chase.In 2014, Bluecrest spun off $8.2 billion worth of assets into a new company, Systematica Investments, run by Bluecrest employee, Leda Braga. CNBC has referred to Braga as "the most powerful woman in Hedge Funds", earning in excess of $50 million annually.
In 2015, Bluecrest returned all outside capital to investors and transitioned into a family office, which is a private investment partnership that manages money only for its partners and employees.
The fund generated returns of 50% in 2016, 54% in 2017, 25% in 2018 when the average hedge fund lost money, and 50% in 2019.
In March 2020, BlueCrest reduced the size of its relative-value trading book, which seeks to exploit anomalies in related securities. The company also cut risk across the firm by about $1 billion. BlueCrest suffered some losses after the sell-off, but the investment fund was up for the year through the close of trading on 11 March.
BlueCrest continued expanding its trading teams after becoming a family office, hiring additional portfolio managers across macro and relative-value strategies beginning in 2020.
On 8 December 2020, The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission announced that BlueCrest had agreed to pay $170 million to settle charges arising from inadequate disclosures, material misstatements, and misleading omissions concerning its transfer of top traders from its flagship client fund, BlueCrest Capital International, to a proprietary fund, BSMA Limited, and replacement of those traders with an underperforming algorithm.
The fund generated returns of 153% in 2022, 20% in 2023 and 38% in 2024.