Firm: Moore Capital Management
City: London
2008 Age: 51
2008 Assets Under Management: $15 Billion
Louis Bacon is the manager of a leading New York City based hedge fund, Moore Capital Management (after his mother’s maiden name). Moore Capital is headquartered in New York City but has other offices in London, Toronto, and Washington D.C.
Bacon grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina. He attended Middlebury College where he studied literature and graduated cum laude. In his college years he spent time during the summer working as a clerk for New York Stock Exchange specialist Walter Frank.
After college, Bacon started his career on Wall Street working as a clerk on the New York Coffee, Cocoa and Sugar exchanges.
He later received his MBA degree from Columbia University. He is said to have used part of his student loan to trade with – and lost it all – an early and painful lesson in risk management.
In 1983 Bacon started working as a futures broker at Shearson Lehman Brothers in New York. Among his clients were Paul Tudor Jones and his brother Zack, also in the business, who was a trader for George Soros’ Quantum Fund at the time. Bacon benefitted from the commission flow from Soros and Jones – and perhaps more importantly – gained insight into their style of trading.
Bacon founded Moore Capital in Management 1989 and achieved stunning 86% returns the first year. He correctly assumed that the Gulf war would drive up crude oil prices and also shorted the Nikkei before the Japanese markets collapsed.
Bacon trades a Global Macro Strategy and is one of a scarce number of discretionary traders along with Paul Tudor Jones, a fellow southerner and close friend. During their bachelor days Jones and Bacon enjoyed the nightclubs of Manhattan together.
Bacon, who keeps a notably low profile, is married to Gabrielle Sacconaghi, an art consultant. Bacon’s stepmother is the former Blanche Robertson, sister of Julian Robertson, founder of Tiger Management.
Among Bacon’s aquisitions is the largest privately owned ranch in Colorado, the Trinchera Ranch in Costilla County which he bought from the Forbes family. The 171,400-acre property sold for $175 million.