Stanley Fink can’t make his retirement stick. After 21 years with Man Group, the world’s largest publicly traded fund of hedge funds, Fink — Man’s CEO for seven years until he became deputy chairman in 2007 — tried to leave the hedge fund industry behind in July to become a full-time philanthropist. But the 51-year-old was barraged with job offers and accepted one. On September 15 he became CEO of International Standard Asset Management, a London-based commodities trading firm that specializes in gold markets. The firm has just $300 million under management — a big change for Fink, who helped oversee $76 billion at Man. He’ll be working with diversified investment strategies based on managed-futures trading. “Exchange-traded instruments are more liquid and better valued than over-the-counter derivatives. That makes them safer to use,” he says. “Strategies based on trading managed futures don’t require liquidity from a prime broker or the banking market, which is a real advantage right now.”
