Ziff family office sheds hedge fund

The multi-billion dollar family office Ziff Brothers Investment is reportedly set to close its US hedge fund.

According to the Wall St Journal, the changes were announced in an internal email to employees earlier this week. The family office’s private equity arm reportedly won’t be affected, a source told the newspaper.

The closure of the fund is said to be linked to the planned retirement of head portfolio manager Ian McKinnon, 46, in 2015. He had held the role since 1999.
The sector heads within the hedge fund are tech specialist Eli Cohen; Parag Pande, who focuses on industrials; and Ryan Pedlow, who invests in financials.

The Ziff brothers – Dirk, Robert and Daniel – are each worth $4.6 billion, according to Forbes.

They set the family office up in 1992, off the back of the $1.4 billion sale of the family publishing business, Ziff Davis, by their father, who mistakenly believed he was dying of cancer.

The fortune was then reinvested through the family office in private equity, debt, real estate and commodities, as well as hedge funds.