(Bloomberg) -- Kevin Byrne, the chief financial officer of hedge fund Millennium Management, is leaving to join rival Balyasny Asset Management, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
He will join Balyasny as the firm’s global chief operating officer, the people said asking not to be identified because the details are private. Daniel Widawsky, Millennium’s chief administrative officer, will additionally take the role of the CFO, one of the people said.
Representatives for Millennium and Balyasny declined to comment.
Byrne moved to Millennium a decade ago after a 13-year run at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. He was CFO and responsible for finance, corporate services and real estate at Millennium, according to the firm’s website.
The move highlights the intense competition among the largest hedge funds as they seek to bolster their investment and leadership teams.
Millennium reshuffled its top management in 2022 and named Paul Russo as its co-chief investment officer and hired Justin Gmelich from King Street Capital Management as the other co-CIO, Bloomberg News has reported.
For its part, Balyasny has also made several senior hires over the past 12 months. Giuseppe Paleologo has been tapped as the hedge fund’s new head of quantitative research, Francine Fang is joining as its global head of systematic trading, while Peter Goodwin is coming over to help lead its global equities business, Bloomberg has previously reported.
Balyasny’s chief operating officer for investments, Gustav Rydbeck, who helped oversee the multistrategy hedge fund’s three equity business units, left earlier this year after more than nine years at the firm.
Firms such as Millennium and Balyasny rely on teams of traders to make money and have seen unprecedented growth in their assets. Millennium now runs $68 billion, up from just $12 billion in 2008, while Balyasny manages more than $20 billion, up from $2.4 billion during the same period.
Here’s a table of first-half returns for the two firms and some of their peers:
(Updates with Balyasny’s hires in seventh paragraph, followed by a table of hedge fund performance)
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