Effective end-March, global macro hedge fund manager Greg Coffey will not accept new money into his two-year-old portfolio.

Greg Coffey’s Kirkoswald Asset Management, which last year earned 28%, will stop accepting new investments. It trades in global equities, bonds, and currencies, and the move is a bid to protect returns.

Assets are likely to amount to nearly $ 2 billion by the end of the first quarter, said an investor who spoke with the fund manager. It has become difficult for the larger funds to generate returns, and research has shown that smaller, more nimble funds are doing better.

Meanwhile, his 28% return in 2019 beat by a huge margin the gain of 6.16% in the HFRI Macro (Total) Index, according to Business Recorder. Profits on equities that benefited from low central bank interest rates, as well as rising interest rates in certain developed and emerging markets, helped drive the outperformance.

Greg Coffey has reportedly returned 30% a year on average over his 17 years’ career of managing money.

Greg Coffey

Australian Greg Coffey earned his spurs as a macro investor at the GLG hedge fund. In the bull market of 2005 – 07, Coffey reportedly earned hundreds of millions of dollars and the nickname “the Wizard of Oz.”

He later moved to Louis Bacon’s Moore Capital Management. Billionaire Bacon is said to have described Coffey as “the most impressive trader I’ve ever seen.” In an irony of sorts, Bacon said November that he will close Moore Capital and return money to investors.

In 2012, at age 41, Coffey had decided to retire to spend more time with his family.

In early 2018, he and former colleague James Saltissi joined forces to launch Kirkoswald (previously known as Abbeville Partners).

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