Hedge fund Elliott’s equity partner Kasoff retires: letter

By Svea Herbst-Bayliss

BOSTON (Reuters) – Elliott Management Co said Steve Kasoff, one of the firm’s equity partners and its head of real estate and structured products, has retired from the $40 billion hedge fund.

Kasoff joined the New York-headquartered firm in 2003 and was named an equity partner in 2015, as Elliott sought to broaden its leadership team.

“We are grateful to Steve for his contributions to the firm,” Elliott wrote in a letter to clients announcing the departure seen by Reuters.

A spokeswoman for the company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Kasoff could not be reached for comment.

While Elliott is currently best known for its activist investments, including recent bets at Twitter and AT&T , it has a broad investment mandate. Kasoff was responsible for bets against the overheated housing market long before the 2007-2009 financial crisis took hold and later made money on bets the economy would recover.

The firm was founded in 1977 by Paul Singer and has delivered an average 13% return a year to pension funds, college endowments and private investors over the last four decades.

During the first quarter the Elliott International Limited portfolio returned 2.2% compared with the S&P500 stock index’s 19.6% drop.

Separately Franck Tuil, a senior portfolio manager at Elliott in Europe, left after nearly two decades, Bloomberg reported citing people familiar with the matter.

(Reporting by Svea Herbst-Bayliss; Editing by Tom Brown)