(Bloomberg) -- There’s a shaft of snow and rock in the Grand Tetons called Corbet’s Couloir, where extreme skiers go to test their mettle and others line the precipice to watch. 

Dmitry Balyasny named his new equities operation Corbets Capital after that famous Wyoming run. 

It’s a striking choice for Balyasny, whose Chicago hedge fund took a humbling spill a few years back. But Balyasny Asset Management has more than recovered. Today, the firm is bigger and richer than ever.

Assets under management totaled $15.7 billion as of May, up from $11 billion in early 2018, before trouble struck, according to a person familiar with the matter. When Balyasny stumbled that year and clients rushed for the exits, the firm cut 125 jobs, or almost a fifth of the staff. Since then, he’s rehired, and then some: He now employs 1,100 people, including 470 investment professionals. 

Looking back, Balyasny, 49, said his mistake in 2018 came down to undue caution and a tough environment for long-short equity, which at that point accounted for about 90% of risk. The fund lost conviction in trades, played defense and posted a 7% loss that, combined with client withdrawals, resulted in a $4 billion asset decline. He said he won’t make the same mistake again.

“When you have a strong investment and risk-management process, you need to take enough risk to have an outstanding year,” Balyasny said in an interview.

His Atlas Enhanced fund -- named after “Atlas Shrugged,” the Ayn Rand novel -- rose 6.9% this year through April, despite tumult in the broader markets. It gained 8.3% in 2021 and 33% in 2020.

Read more: Balyasny Boosts Ranks of Money Managers 60% in Blockbuster Year

Balyasny, a native of Ukraine, founded the firm in 2001 with Scott Schroeder and Taylor O’Malley. In 2018, when it underperformed the 6.2% decline of the S&P 500, other multistrategy funds posted solid gains. Citadel climbed 9.1% and Millennium advanced 4.9%. 

Many clients consider the 2018 loss -- the only annual decline in the firm’s history -- to be a rare misstep. Since then, Balyasny has returned money to wealthy individuals and instead attracted more from institutions to lock up cash for longer, according to the person familiar with the matter. Those bigger backers -- such as sovereign wealth funds -- now make up 65% of his investor base, up from 37% in 2018, the person said.

Balyasny has been building out his management committee and adding technology specialists and analysts to support his portfolio managers. Previously, teams typically shared an analyst or two. Now, it’s three to five analysts per portfolio manager.

Those additions have made Balyasny willing to take bigger chances and pursue more trades. The number of market bets per strategy has increased fivefold, and macro trading, once a minor strategy for the money manager, now accounts for about a third of risk. 

The firm is sometimes compared with another financial player in the Windy City: Citadel, the hedge fund and trading powerhouse run by billionaire Ken Griffin. In fact, after Balyasny sent an email to staff in 2018 saying his firm’s performance “sucks,” Griffin got hold of the memo and had it displayed during a townhall-style meeting, according to a Business Insider report.

Balyasny has since plucked several executives from Griffin’s firm, among them Jeff Runnfeldt, global head of equities; Alex Lurye, to overhaul risk management; and Steven Goldberg, global head of macro. He also brought in former Citadel employees George Klavdianos to run event-driven credit and Matthias Pfau as chief operating officer of commodity trading. 

“We invested a lot in our teams,” Balyasny said. “You need to feel comfortable you have the right people and infrastructure in place.”

Read more: Balyasny Can’t Recruit Citadel Traders as It Ends Dispute

Then there’s Corbets Capital, the new unit designed to bolster the firm’s equities strategy. Balyasny recently promoted Tom Stephens, his associate director of research since late 2021, to president of Corbets. Balyasny, who owns property near the double black-diamond ski run, intends to expand the group to 20 teams with three to five people apiece over the next year.

To drop into Corbet’s Couloir, skiers must leap from a high cornice, land in a narrow gully and dodge a rock wall by executing a hard right turn.

“We thought this was an appropriate analogy for trading, as it remains an inspiration and an exercise in risk management,” Balyasny said in a memo earlier this year explaining the new unit.

As for whether Balyasny has ever skied it himself, he declined to say.

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