The 2016 Hedge Fund Rising Stars: Pierre-Adrien Nicolas

Nicolas left Barclays to become CIO for EMEA at buzzed-about hedge fund start-up Squarepoint Capital.

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< The 2016 Hedge Fund Rising Stars
Pierre-Adrien Nicolas
Squarepoint Capital

These are not halcyon days for hedge funds, but as good investors know, that’s when the best opportunities come along. London-based Squarepoint Capital, in a highly anticipated launch, was spun out from Barclays at the end of 2014. Pierre-Adrien Nicolas, the firm’s CIO for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, is still just 32, but he already knows a thing or two about the fickleness of markets.

Nicolas grew up in Normandy, France, the son of a lawyer and a speech therapist. He studied mathematics and physics, receiving a master’s degree in applied math from France’s École Polytechnique before earning an MS in financial engineering at Columbia University in New York. Upon graduating from Columbia in 2007, he joined Lehman Brothers Holdings as a proprietary trader. In hindsight, the quant’s entry into finance could look like bad timing. Nicolas had planned to join Lehman Brothers in New York, but he was hired in London, where he became part of a quantitative trading business started at the bank by Olivier Durantel and Gregoire Schneider in 2000.

The year after Nicolas arrived at Lehman, bad bets on U.S. subprime mortgages and a highly leveraged balance sheet forced it to declare bankruptcy in September. When Barclays bought the Wall Street firm out of Chapter 11, Nicolas and his colleagues found themselves doing proprietary trading for the British bank. Owing to regulatory changes in recent years, banks have been dismantling their prop trading businesses, so it was inevitable that nQuants, as the team was known, would have to spin out of Barclays or otherwise be disbanded. In 2014 news broke that nQuants was leaving. Nicolas was one of a team of about 65 that departed to launch Squarepoint, which began trading in early 2015.

Visit the 2016 Hedge Fund Rising Stars: Ivy League Schools Pave the Way for more.


Hedge Fund Rising Stars of 2016

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Jessye Ball
Millennium Mgmt

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Sarah Berner
Aristeia Capital

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Jenna Bussman-Wise
AIG Investments

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Maureen Chang
Point72 Asset Mgmt

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Dennis Chenfu
Pershing

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Charles Dufresne Jr.
Sciens Capital Mgmt

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William Freda
Graticule Asset Mgmt Asia

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Samantha Greenberg
Margate Capital

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Mark Gurevich
Ropes & Gray

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Tal Gurion
Mariner Glen Oaks

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Craig Huie
University of California

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Yusef Kassim
Blue Harbour Group

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Florian Kronawitter
White Square Capital

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Vikram Kumar
TT International

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Brandon Levin
Jana Partners

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Jonathan Levin
George Weiss Associates

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Brett Minarik
Aksia

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Ian Monroe
Etho Capital

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Jason Morrow
Utah Retirement Systems

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Pierre-Adrien Nicolas
Squarepoint Capital

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Jamie Pabst
Green Owl Capital Mgmt

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Parag Pande
Blackstone Group

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Agata Praczuk
MetLife

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Max Saffian
Fortress Investment Group

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Matt Satnick
MSD Partners

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Eric Singer
Viex Capital Advisors

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Katina Stefanova
Marto Capital

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Reginald Tucker
New York State Common Retirement Fund

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Michael Wang
Cypress Funds

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Sean Wygovsky
Polar Asset Mgmt Partners


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