At the age of 41 UK’s biggest hedge fund star, has amassed a fortune of £430million and a portfolio of luxury properties across the globe.
But now he is walking away from his lucrative career – to concentrate more on his family.
Greg Coffey announced in a letter to investors that he is retiring from Moore Capital Management, run by billionaire Louis Bacon, after 20 years in the industry.
Mr Coffey once tipped as a successor to Mr Bacon, wrote: ‘After nearly 20 years in the financial markets, I’ve decided to leave the industry.
‘The demands of my growing family mean that I am unable to commit to the market with the same intensity going forward.
“I plan on seeing much more of my wife and children and spending time in my home country, Australia.”
Despite Mr Coffey having a wife and three young children he was a ‘very passionate man’, who would often work throughout the night and day, and after 20 years he felt it was time to leave.
The hedge fund star millionaire, from Australia, owns plush properties across the world, including a hunting estate on the Hebridean island of Jura, Scotland, and mansions in Kensington, London and Sydney.
Mr Coffey bought the sprawling Ardfin Estate on Jura in 2008, when it was on the market for £3.5million.
It was described by estate agents as ‘The Jewel of Jura’, ‘an outstanding sporting estate’ including internationally-renowned gardens, several houses and cottages, ‘prolific red deer stalking’, with 10 miles of coastline and seven private islands.
As well as the red deer stalking, sports that can be enjoyed within the estate are low ground game shooting and sea fishing.
Since 2004, when Mr Coffey began trading, he averaged an annual return to investors of 22 per cent, he became an industry legend.
Whenever he went on holiday he would have his trading terminals deconstructed and flown to his hotel.
He said to be a keen skier and has been known to have a trunk of screens and keyboards sent ahead to wherever he and his family choose to ski.
The hardware would be assembled to allow him to trade through the night while his wife and children slept.
Known for preferring jeans and leather jackets to suits, Mr Coffey graduated with a degree in actuarial studies from Sydney’s Macquarie University then in 1994 started trading.
He joined Moore Capital in the same year he bought the Scottish estate and was given the title of co-chief investment officer of European investing.
He sprang to prominence in 2008 after being offered a $250million ‘golden handcuffs’ deal to stay at his then-employer, GLG Partners, where he had run a highly successful trading book.
He turned down the offer in favour of a place at Moore and when he joined Bacon praised him as “one of the most impressive traders in the world.”
Last year, he raised more than a billion dollars for a new fund, called GC Moore, branded especially for him.
But following his success, Mr Coffey reportedly struggled to make the sort of staggering gains that earned him the nickname ‘Wizard of Oz’, a nod to his home country.
This year, outflows saw his funds diminish, to a point where he was overseeing just ‘a few hundred million’, said one investor.
Mr Coffey relinquished his position as overseeing Moore Emerging Markets fund this year over disagreements over strategy and lacklustre performance.
People close to him insisted at the time the shift did not signal a rift between Mr Bacon and his protege.
Mr Coffey’s decision to retire comes after mounting speculation that he was set to leave the fund.
And the news comes amid a general downsizing at Moore Capital. As reported in August, Mr Bacon returned $2 billion to his investors after conceding he was confounded by the markets.
Mr Coffey has no plans to continue in asset management, according to two people with direct knowledge of the decision.
His remaining funds at Moore will be liquidated and the money returned to investors at the end of November, as reported in the Financial Times.
The hedge fund star joins a long line of investors who have given up managing hedge funds in the past few years.
On his former protege’s departure, Mr Bacon said in a statement as reported in the New York Times: “Greg Coffey has been a significant contributor to Moore’s European business, and we are disappointed that he is choosing to retire from the industry. We wish him well in all his future endeavours.”
Article courtesy of the Daily Mail