Ex-Millennium exec Bobby Jain has made his first major hire for the industry’s most hotly anticipated new hedge fund launch

• Ex-Millennium exec Bobby Jain is preparing to launch one of the most anticipated hedge funds in history.
• Jain has made his first major hire, tapping BofA exec Jonathan Barton as chief operating officer.
• An exit agreement barring Jain from hiring ended at the beginning of this month.

Former Millennium executive Bobby Jain has made his first major hire as he lays the groundwork for what Wall Street professionals are expecting to be one of the largest ever hedge fund launches.

Jain, previously co-CIO of Izzy Englander’s Millennium Management, has tapped Bank of America executive Jonathan Barton as his chief operating officer, according to people familiar with the matter. Barton, a managing director and head of equities product development and strategic initiatives at BofA, will be tasked with helping build out the most hotly anticipated new fund in years. Before BofA, Barton was COO at Meru Capital and Old Lane; he started his career at Morgan Stanley.

A spokesman for Jain declined to comment. A Bank of America spokesperson also declined to comment. 

The name of the forthcoming investment firm has not yet been revealed, and it’s not clear much capital Jain expects to raise. Under Jain’s exit agreement, he can’t start managing client money until next year. But Jain’s pedigree and the success of the last launch to come out of Millennium’s C-suite have Wall Street professionals predicting a mammoth new competitor. 

Jain joined Millennium, which now manages nearly $59 billion in assets, in 2016 after two decades at Credit Suisse, where he served as head of its asset management division. His arrival at Millennium hastened the exit of long-time executive Michael Gelband, once viewed as the heir apparent to Englander. Gelband left at the beginning of 2017 in a cloud of acrimony to launch his own firm, ExodusPoint. A legal skirmish broke out, but ExodusPoint went on to launch in 2018 with $8.5 billion in assets — a record-setting mark. 

Wall Street investors and service providers are justifiably salivating at the prospect of the next big launch to emerge from Englander’s stable. It’s still early innings, but this one thus far has lacked the rancor surrounding ExodusPoint. 

Jain’s departure was announced in November, and he stayed on as an advisor through June. His exit agreement prohibited him from officially hiring until the end of last Month.