Millennium Exit Spawns Two New Hedge Funds Seeking $1.4 Billion

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(Bloomberg) — Two new commodities hedge funds are seeking to raise a collective $1.4 billion in assets after Millennium Management pulled the plug on the founders’ previous fund last year.

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Les Finemore and Al Fullerton have started Moreton Capital Partners and are seeking to raise $1 billion for a fund trading across commodities markets that will combine quantitative research with artificial intelligence, Finemore said in an interview. 

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Meanwhile, Adam Davis of Farrer Capital Management Pty is looking to raise $400 million for a new agriculture-focused fund, he told Bloomberg.

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The three men previously worked together at Farrer, which launched with $500 million in backing from Millennium in 2024. However, the larger firm pulled its funding last year.

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Commodities hedge funds have enjoyed a comeback in recent years after a long spell out of fashion, as stellar trading profits spurred by the energy crisis in 2022 revived investor interest. Still, the most aggressive expansions have generally been in large multistrategy funds like Citadel, Millennium and Squarepoint, while new commodity fund launches have been relatively rare.

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Returns in commodity trading have cooled somewhat since the peak of the energy crisis, and an index of the 15 largest commodity-focused funds compiled by Bridge Alternatives was tracking $16.5 billion as of its most recent recalculation in Oct. 2025, down from $17 billion a year earlier. 

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Nonetheless, Finemore said that his conversations with investors indicated that appetite for the sector is “red hot,” with interest spanning North America, the Middle East and Europe.

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“We’re seeing massive interest,” he said. “The global system’s very fragmented. Supply chains are regionalizing and there are geopolitical tensions, obviously. That brings a lot of opportunities for us.”

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Moreton, based in Abu Dhabi and Mexico City, will have more than 10 people, Finemore said. It’s targeting sovereign wealth funds and institutional investors and could eventually grow to as large as $3 billion to $4 billion, he said. It will lean heavily on artificial intelligence to “systematize the fundamental trader,” he said.

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Separately, Davis, Farrer’s chief investment officer and a former head of commodities at Merricks Capital, is aiming to raise $200 million by the end of the first quarter and $400 million by the end of the year for the new agriculture-focused fund at Farrer. 

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The fund will trade physical commodities as well as exchange and over-the-counter derivatives and has six employees, with its headquarters in Melbourne.

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Finemore and Davis both declined to comment on the relationship with Millennium. A spokesperson for Millennium declined to comment.

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