Zoe Cruz Said to Liquidate Hedge Fund Voras Capital

Zoe Cruz, the former co-president of Morgan Stanley who was ousted in 2007, is liquidating her $200 million hedge fund after losing 8 percent last year, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.

Voras Capital Management LP, which Cruz started in New York about two years ago, will return money to investors in the coming months, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the information is private.

Cruz is considering opportunities in banking and investing, the person said. She joins a number of hedge-fund managers who called it quits in recent weeks. Billionaire energy trader John Arnold told clients last week of his plan to close Centaurus Energy Master Fund in Houston. BlueGold Capital Management LLP, the $1 billion fund co-run by Pierre Andurand in London, said last month that it will return client money.

Cruz didn’t return telephone calls seeking comment. Reuters reported the closing of Voras Capital earlier today.

Liquidations in the hedge fund industry rose to 775 last year, the most since 2009, according to Hedge Fund Research Inc., a Chicago-based research firm.

Highest-Paid

Voras Capital was a macro fund, which sought to profit from broad economic trends by trading everything from currencies to commodities. Such funds lost an average 7.4 percent last year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Once viewed by analysts as a leading candidate to succeed Morgan Stanley (MS)’s former Chief Executive Officer John Mack, Cruz was ousted from the New York-based bank in November 2007 after the firm disclosed $3.7 billion of losses on mortgage-related securities at the unit she ran. She was also Wall Street’s highest-paid female executive, earning about $30 million in compensation in 2006.

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