Bloomberg – Vikram Pandit and John Havens, former top executives at Morgan Stanley, plan to open a hedge fund next month after raising at least $2 billion from investors, said three people with knowledge of the decision.<\/p>\n
Old Lane LLC will invest in areas ranging from the energy markets to infrastructure projects in India, said the people, who declined to be identified because the New York-based firm’s plan isn’t public. Pandit and Havens, both 49, left Morgan Stanley a year ago during a management shakeup that led to Chief Executive Officer Philip Purcell being replaced by John Mack.<\/p>\n
Pandit and Havens built Morgan Stanley’s equity trading unit into one of the top two on Wall Street, alongside Goldman, before they departed in protest. Old Lane is the second-biggest hedge fund to start up this year, after Boston-based Convexity Capital Management LP, founded by Jack Meyer, former investment chief of Harvard University’s endowment.<\/p>\n
“A disproportionate amount of money is being raised from investors chasing premium launches,” said Robert Schulman, who’s head of Tremont Capital Management Inc., a Rye, New York- based money-management and research firm.<\/p>\n
Pandit, Havens and Rebecca Weissburg, Old Lane’s office manager, declined to comment.<\/p>\n
Wall Street executives are attracting billions to hedge funds, which have the highest fees in the money management industry. Hedge funds typically charge customers an annual management fee of about 2 percent and take a 20 percent cut of any profits. Eric Mindich, 38, formerly co-head of equities at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., took in $3.5 billion in 2004 for New York-based Eton Park Capital Management LP.<\/p>\n