Hedge Fund That Millennium Exited Reboots With Schonfeld Backing

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(Bloomberg) — Khalid Malik’s stocks-focused hedge fund that lost a $1.5 billion backing from Millennium Management more than two years ago has reset its business with cash injection from another multistrategy investment firm, Schonfeld Strategic Advisors. 

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His Meridiem Capital Partners has rebuilt assets to about $1.6 billion and is on track to hit $2 billion by the end of the year, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. Schonfeld, which became the firm’s biggest backer after Millennium’s exit, topped up its investment this year to lift the assets, the person said, asking not to be identified because the details are private. 

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Malik’s fund made 13.6% during the first half of the year and hired John Golden, a former partner and co-founder of energy-focused private equity firm Spicewood Partners, as its president to help raise capital and oversee investor relations and business development.

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Representatives for Meridiem and Schonfeld declined to comment.

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Meridiem’s comeback is one of the few examples of a hedge fund getting a second life after suffering large withdrawals from key clients. It also shows soaring appetite among multistrategy hedge funds, which rely on teams of traders to make money, to back external managers. 

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Firms such as Schonfeld, Millennium and Qube Research & Technologies farm out billions of dollars to external managers as a way of tapping fresh talent to deploy their soaring assets. 

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Schonfeld has a long history of giving money to external traders and last year backed Omar Newera’s Abu Dhabi-based fund with $500 million, while former Garda money manager Nicolas Monaghan launched his hedge fund, Mistral Capital, with cash from the multistrategy firm. In 2019, Schonfeld backed Nabil Ouajjane’s Aster Capital.

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Such capital has become one of the biggest sources of cash for smaller peers to grow quickly, drawing comparison with rocket fuel for its ability to supercharge a startup as well as an existing hedge fund. But that can also prove too “flammable,” according to Marc Gilly, a partner at Canepa Global Managers, making it a high-risk shortcut that can easily destabilize a firm if not balanced with stable, long-term capital.

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Malik, a former portfolio manager at Citadel’s Surveyor Capital who previously worked at Steve Cohen’s hedge fund when it was known as SAC Capital Advisors, began managing money from Schonfeld in 2024 after Millennium pulled its cash after a lockup period ended.

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Based in Dallas and New York, Meridiem was founded by Malik in 2021. It runs a market-neutral, sector-focused investment strategy.

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