A tale of two (London) hedge funds, and their pay
It’s something of a reporting season for London’s hedge funds. D.E. Shaw did well. Capula did less well. But there were a number of smaller funds that had much more varied fates.
Click here to join the bubble by eFinancialCareers, our new anonymous community. ✍️
Two of those hedge funds are Caxton and Kirkoswald, who both published results this week. Caxton’s results are for the period ending 31 March 2025, while Kirkoswald’s are for 2024 as a calendar year. Caxton’s results were published as Caxton Associates LLP, and Kirkoswald’s as Kirkoswald Capital Partners LLP.
Caxton did very well indeed. Revenue at the firm went from $293m for the period ending March 2024 to $476m in the period ending March 2025, a 62% increase. Operating profit went from $184m to $336m across the same periods, an 83% increase.
Caxton's pay, however, did not go up so generously. Although the wage bill went up somewhat proportionally, by 57%, a 40% increase in headcount made most of the difference. Average pay at the firm “only” went from $548k to $619k, a 13% increase.
The biggest benefactors of Caxton’s success were its members (UK legal jargon for partners in a partnership). At most hedge funds, these are portfolio managers – and Caxton’s members shared an average of $24m between them at the end of the March 2025 period, up from the $15m they each received the year before. Their total number went up from 13 to 15, too.
Kirkoswald, the hedge fund founded by Australian trader Greg Coffey (known as the Wizard of Oz), faired more poorly. While revenue did crawl up from £22m ($29m) in 2023 to £23m ($32m) to 2024, operating profit fell from £8.1m ($11m) to £4.6m ($6m).
And while Kirkoswald did hire some people – headcount went from 23 to 33 between 2023 and 2024 – the wage bill actually went down. And as such, average pay per person went from £368k ($497k) to £199k ($269k). That’s a 46% decrease.
Unlike at Caxton at least, Kirkoswald’s members at least tied their fate to their employees. Average profit per member went from £2m ($2.8m) to £1.2m ($1.6m) – a 43% decrease.
Have a confidential story, tip, or comment you’d like to share? Contact: +44 7537 182250 (SMS, WhatsApp or voicemail). Telegram: @SarahButcher. Signal: sarahbutcher.22 Click here to fill in our anonymous form, or email editortips@efinancialcareers.com.
Bear with us if you leave a comment at the bottom of this article: comments are moderated intermittently by human beings. Sometimes these humans might be asleep, or away from their desks, so it may take a while for your comment to appear. You must take sole responsibility for comments you post on this site. We will take reasonable steps to weed out anything that we consider to be offensive or inappropriate.
