Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC Pte Ltd has pulled cash from Jain Global, roughly 18 months after backing one of the biggest start-ups in hedge fund history. GIC has redeemed US$250 million (RM976.87 million) from New York-based Jain, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The wealth fund was one of the earliest backers of Jain. It will take as much as two years for it to fully redeem from the fund, the people said, asking not to be identified because the details are private.
GIC is separately going through a leadership change in its external manager department, which oversees the sovereign wealth fund’s allocations to hedge funds around the world. Long-time head Betty Tay plans to retire from the role and will eventually be replaced by Kwong Hong Huat, who previously led its Asian total returns public equities team.
Dan Fagan, who helped GIC put money with Jain Global, left the wealth fund last year to join Blackstone Inc, according to other people with knowledge of the matter. While GIC doesn’t reveal how much it has under management, consulting firm Global SWF estimates its assets were worth about US$936 billion as of March last year, with around 1.5% of that placed with hedge funds.
Representatives of Jain and GIC declined to comment.
Bobby Jain is trying to establish his eponymous firm in the multistrategy space dominated by the likes of Millennium Management, Citadel and DE Shaw & Co. Instead of gradually building the business, he launched in 2024 as a fully fledged platform — a high-cost approach that has put immediate pressure on performance.
Jain, the former co-chief investment officer of Izzy Englander’s Millennium, generated about US$750 million in trading profits last year — but investors shared only about a quarter of the gains or a net 3.7% after fees, Bloomberg reported. The firm’s front-loaded expenses impacted its returns as it gradually deployed the US$5.3 billion it raised.His fund made 0.5% in 2024 after its mid-year launch, and was down 0.9% in January this year.
Jain kicked off his hedge fund operation with about a half-dozen strategies and hundreds of staffers globally, a scale of buildout with little precedent in the hedge fund world. The industry veteran has himself likened the task to trying to land three airplanes at once. He began 2025 with about US$2 billion deployed and ended with about US$5 billion invested across 50 trading teams. The firm employs about 400 people.
-Bloomgberg