Millennium Management Said to Hire Former BofA Proprietary-Trading Team

Millennium Management LLC, the $11.3 billion hedge fund run by Israel Englander, hired a proprietary- trading team formerly at Bank of America Corp. (BAC), according to a person familiar with the matter.

Linus Wright, 41, and his eight-person team will start at Millennium’s London offices next month, said the person, who asked not be identified because the information is private. Dave Millar, a spokesman for the New York-based company, declined to comment on the appointments.

Englander said in November that it was the best time in 15 years to hire traders as banks shuttered their proprietary- trading businesses to comply with U.S. financial legislation that bars them from trading with their own money. Bank of America, based in Charlotte, North Carolina, last month shut a 15-person proprietary bond-trading unit run by Scott Brown, three people briefed on the decision said on June 10.

Wright’s team, which left the bank in April, had traded relative value, a strategy that seeks to profit from differences in prices of various markets. The London-based group was part of Bank of America’s proprietary-trading business before the firm bought Merrill Lynch & Co. in 2009.

Wright joined Bank of America in 2007. His team includes Paul Cloke, Suketu Shah and Stephanie Allen, the person said.

Englander, 62, who worked as a floor broker on the American Stock Exchange, founded Millennium in 1989 with $35 million. The firm employs more than 110 portfolio managers, according to its website.

To contact the reporter on this story: Saijel Kishan in New York at skishan@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Christian Baumgaertel at cbaumgaertel@bloomberg.net