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The 2016 Hedge Fund Rising Stars: Charles Dufresne Jr.

Sciens Capital Management’s Dufresne is gobbling up hedge funds in the wake of market volatility.

Charles
Dufresne Jr.
Sciens Capital Management

As more hedge funds fall victim to whipsawing global stock markets, Charles Dufresne Jr. sees an opportunity to expand. The managing director at New York–headquartered Sciens Capital Management is on the hunt to acquire hedge funds and funds of funds to bolster his firm’s asset base — about $8.5 billion, with $2.5 billion of that in hedge funds — for pennies on the dollar. In March, Dufresne, 39, led the acquisition of a socially responsible investment group, now called GOOD Asset Management, from U.S. Trust, Bank of America Private Wealth Management, where it ran north of $2 billion.

The Suffield, Connecticut, native cut his teeth on hedge fund acquisitions as an attorney at New York law firm Sadis & Goldberg, where Sciens was a client, from 2008 to 2012. He then joined Tiedemann Investment Group, a New York–based alternative-asset manager, as founding partner and president of a new short-term fixed-income division, leaving for Sciens in 2014.

Dufresne, who holds BA in literature, philosophy and political science from Atlanta’s Emory University, earned a JD in securities law at New York Law School in 2002 and started out at law firm Abbey Spanier, where he served pension clients. Two years later he received an MBA in finance and marketing from Fordham University’s Gabelli School of Business in New York, and the strong relationships he forged as a lawyer for public financiers — he’s been a member of the National Association of State Treasurers since 2004 — launched him into finance.

In 2007, Dufresne moved to Cipher Capital Partners, a New York–based hedge fund and private equity start-up, as a director in charge of distribution. Showing a knack for selling financial products, he soon left Cipher to start his own firm, Opvs Group, to invest in Asia with two colleagues based in Singapore. But Dufresne quickly learned that investors in 2008, reeling from the global financial collapse, weren’t too keen on new hedge funds. The Opvs team admitted defeat later that year, and he fell back on his law degree, biding his time to return to the top of a hedge fund firm.

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

Hedge Fund Rising Stars of 2016

Jessye Ball
Millennium Mgmt
Sarah Berner
Aristeia Capital
Jenna Bussman-Wise
AIG Investments
Maureen Chang
Point72 Asset Mgmt
Dennis Chenfu
Pershing
Charles Dufresne Jr.
Sciens Capital Mgmt
William Freda
Graticule Asset Mgmt Asia
Samantha Greenberg
Margate Capital
Mark Gurevich
Ropes & Gray
Tal Gurion
Mariner Glen Oaks
Craig Huie
University of California
Yusef Kassim
Blue Harbour Group
Florian Kronawitter
White Square Capital
Vikram Kumar
TT International
Brandon Levin
Jana Partners
Jonathan Levin
George Weiss Associates
Brett Minarik
Aksia
Ian Monroe
Etho Capital
Jason Morrow
Utah Retirement Systems
Pierre-Adrien Nicolas
Squarepoint Capital
Jamie Pabst
Green Owl Capital Mgmt
Parag Pande
Blackstone Group
Agata Praczuk
MetLife
Max Saffian
Fortress Investment Group
Matt Satnick
MSD Partners
Eric Singer
Viex Capital Advisors
Katina Stefanova
Marto Capital
Reginald Tucker
New York State Common Retirement Fund
Michael Wang
Cypress Funds
Sean Wygovsky
Polar Asset Mgmt Partners

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