Hedge Fund Giants Are Muscling Into Red-Hot Private Markets

Steve Cohen is one of the richest people in finance thanks to teams of traders making short-term mark-to-markets bets. But over the last few weeks, the billionaire founder of Point72 Asset Management has had his people out talking to investors about an entirely different strategy — where patience, not speed, delivers the payoff.

Cohen is among a number of high profile hedge fund veterans, including Millennium Management’s Izzy Englander and Jain Global’s Bobby Jain, who are moving into private credit and other opaque corners of finance — areas that have traditionally been dominated by asset management industry giants, such as Blackstone Inc., Ares Management Corp. and Apollo Global Management.