The hedge fund figure is concentrating on his private, direct investments via a family office and stepping back from day-to-day work with the business.

Glenn Dubin, who became a billionaire in the hedge fund sector, is leaving the industry after four decades to concentrate on his family office’s investments, Reuters reported late last week on January 24. 

Dubin, 62, told the newswire that he will hand over the management and his equity stake in Engineers Gate, the quantitative hedge fund firm he founded in 2014, at the end of January this year. Engineers Gate president Greg Eisner will take over as chief executive and chair the investment committee. According to the report, Dubin said that Eisner was already running most day-to-day operations of the firm  worth approximately $1 billion.

The report, citing an unnamed source familiar with the situation, went on to say that the firm hopes to increase its assets to as much as $2 billion despite profits cut by the high fees of building the high-tech business. Engineers Gate’s annualized gains of about 13 per cent over the last four years come out to about 5 per cent for clients, net of fees.

The story noted that Dubin’s departure from front-line hedge fund management is matched by similar moves of industry figures Louis Bacon, John Griffin, Stephen Mandel and Leon Cooperman. In recent years hedge funds' returns have been relatively modest, although by no means mediocre given that they are often designed to make money when markets decline, offsetting the fact that they won't necessarily fare as well as long-only funds in a bull market. (See a report about returns here.) There has also been a trend of hedge fund figures remodeling their businesses into family offices, ceasing to take in outside money. Some of this has been prompted by new regulations regarding advisors overseeing third-party assets. 

The report quoted Dubin as saying that he wants to focus on direct investing – a trend that Family Wealth Report has noted for some time – through his family office, Dubin & Co. He also sits on the boards of The Robin Hood Foundation, The Museum of Modern Art and Mount Sinai Health System, in addition to the executive committee of the Harvard Kennedy School.

Dubin was also quoted as saying that the decision to leave Engineers Gate had nothing to do with media attention related to his former association with Jeffrey Epstein, the late US financier charged with trafficking underage girls. Dubin told Reuters that news coverage of his and his wife Eva Andersson-Dubin’s relationship with Epstein and related allegations by Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre were "false" and upsetting, but that he was encouraged by loyal friends who showed support.