Brevan’s Vernon to leave firm
JAMES Vernon, one of the founders of Europe’s biggest hedge fund Brevan Howard, is to leave the firm in September, City A.M. has learned.
Vernon, who has served as the firm’s operating officer since founding it with four Credit Suisse First Boston colleagues nine years ago, told City A.M. when called that he could not comment on his departure.
The company has simply said he is leaving “to pursue other interests”.
Vernon’s colleagues were told of his departure in the monthly newsletter of its primary fund, BH Global.
“We wish to inform you that James Vernon has decided to leave Brevan Howard in September to pursue other interests,” it said in the newsletter. “James will continue to act as a non-executive board member of Brevan Howard’s non-UCITS funds. We thank him for his contribution and wish him well in his future endeavours.”
Vernon is only the second of the fund’s founders to leave, after Jean-Philippe Blochet left in 2009. The founders are notoriously secretive and only its co-chief executive Nagi Kawkabani regularly speaks publicly.
But the firm has been a remarkable success story, growing to a giant $32.5bn (£20bn), and is shortlisted in City A.M.’s awards, in the alternative manager of the year category.
This story was first reported in the Financial Times.