(Bloomberg) -- Edward Eisler is preparing to start his third hedge fund, adopting a route taken by rival Brevan Howard Asset Management to turn his eponymous investment firm into a multi-strategy trading powerhouse.

Eisler Capital is set to launch the Eisler Capital Structure Opportunities Fund in the first half of 2022, according to people with knowledge of the matter. It will be managed by Graham Wood and James Atkinson, who joined last year, having previously worked for Myriad Asset Management, according to the people who asked not to be identified because the details are private.

Eisler, which manages about $4.3 billion and traces its roots back to macro trading, is in the middle of transforming itself into a multi-strategy investment firm where dozens of traders manage money for their own strategies. Investors are plowing money into such platforms pioneered by the likes of Millennium Management. 

Unlike the investment giants that typically run one big fund, Eisler is starting multiple money pools, much like Brevan Howard’s approach of giving separate funds to its star traders a few years ago to regrow its business. The tactic is often used to retain top traders in a world where the competition for talent is intensifying.

Eisler also tried to buy Neil Phillips’s hedge fund Glen Point Capital recently, a transaction which could have added multiple funds to its platform. The deal fell apart in part because of a disagreement on the level of risk Glen Point’s fund could take, people said last week.

A spokesman for London-based Eisler Capital declined to comment.  

Wood, who will be chief investment officer, and Atkinson, who will be his deputy, already run some money for the firm’s existing multi-strategy hedge fund. They will be joined by former HBK Capital Management trader Elizabeth Taylor as a portfolio manager in running the hedge fund. The three money managers decided to join Eisler’s platform to avoid setting up their own firm and so that they could start with a sizable amount of capital, the firm told potential clients.   

The trio will follow a multi-strategy approach to bet on convertible bonds, credit, high yield, special purpose acquisition companies and yield derivatives. They will aim to generate 10% to 15% returns annually, the people said. At Myriad, Wood never had a down year and produced annualised gains of about 15% between 2011 and 2017, Eisler has told clients.

The Eisler founder was formerly co-head of Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s global securities unit. He set up his investment firm in 2015 and started trading for his first fund a year later with about $1 billion in one of the largest startups in Europe that year. The firm raised about $1 billion in its second Eisler Capital Multi Strategy Fund last year. 

Eisler’s main Master Fund had gained an estimated 1.5% this year through mid-February, while the multi-strategy fund was up 3.2%, one of the people said. Eisler Capital employs 128 people.

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