In European hedge fund circles, a big talking point recently has been the decision of Greg Coffey one of the industrys star performers of the past two years to resign suddenly from GLG Partners, the London-based and New York-listed hedge fund group.
The move appeared to take quite a lot of people by surprise, including not least GLG co-founder and co-CEO Noam Gottesman, who frankly admitted during a conference call with investors: "It never occurred to me that a few hundred million dollars would be an insufficient sum to retain someone."
Remarkably, though, it appears that such potentially vast sums were ultimately not enough. If he had stuck around, Coffey would have stood to make $250 million or more, according to various reports in a combination of cash and shares after he had delivered such excellent 50%-plus returns...