Carl Icahn relocates, Aberdeen Standard Has New Reseach Head, and Blackstone Adds a New Director

Carl Icahn is moving his hedge fund to Miami to capture better tax benefits. The hedge fund manager is relocating from New York. Icahn will move half of his employees and himself in early 2020, according to Reuters.

Carl Icahn Offers Severance to Those Who Won’t Join Him

According to reports, Icahn has considered a move for never years. He told his staff of Icahn Enterprises that he plans to shut the firm’s office in New York and open a new location in Miami in April 2020. Each employee who relocates will receive a $50,000 benefit. Others who do not join will receive severance and have access to unemployment claims.

“My employees have always been very important to the company, so I’d like to invite you all to join me in Miami,” Icahn wrote in a May 17 letter.

The Trend Continues

Carl Icahn is the latest of several high-profile managers to relocate to Florida due to lower taxes. Paul Tudor Jones and David Tepper have also relocated their firms. Icahn and other affluent New Yorkers have moved due to the limits on federal deductions from the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

Now, here are more people on the move for September 16, 2019.

• Min Chow Sai is the new head of investment research – real estate, Asia Pacific – at Aberdeen Standard Investments. Min Chow will operate from the company’s Singapore office and focus on global and regional real estate portfolios. Before joining the firm, he worked at Nomura Securities in Singapore for more than 10 years.
• Alternative asset firm Black Diamond Capital Management announced it has appointed Ethan Auerbach to the role of Senior Managing Director and Portfolio Manager for Non-control Distressed Investments. Auerbach will manage Black Diamond’s portfolio of non-control distressed investments for its hedge fund and closed-end non-controlled distressed investment fund.
• Next up, George Holstead has joined the Incapital LLC as the company’s Co-Head of Fixed Income. He will report directly to CEO John DesPrez, hold a spot on the executive committee and will direct the firm’s institutional fixed income business.  Holstead will operate out of the company’s Boca Raton office. Holstead comes over from Brean Capital.

Axium Hires SPPM, Chan Joins BAAM, SEC Director Exits

• Bedis Gharbi is a new Senior Portfolio Manager at Axiom Alternative Investment. The French asset manager has more than $1.4 billion in AUM and has offices in Paris and London. Before joining Axiom, he served as Head of Synthetic Credit Funds at RiverRock European Capital Partners.
• Raymond Chan is a new managing director at Blackstone in the company’s portfolio management and investment research team at Blackstone Alternative Asset Management (BAAM). The new portfolio manager comes over from Goldman Sachs, where he worked for 15 years. Chan earned an MBA at The Wharton School at The University of Pennsylvania and an AB from Harvard University.
• Finally, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced last week that James Daly will retire from his role as Division of Corporation Finance Associate Director. He will step down after 38 years at the U.S. financial agency.