Capula Investment Management has allocated approximately $450m to Cinctive Capital Management through a separately managed account, marking another example of large multi-strategy firms expanding their use of external portfolio managers to deploy capital, according to a report by Bloomberg.

The allocation places Cinctive in the role of managing capital on behalf of Capula as part of a broader trend among major hedge funds increasingly outsourcing portions of their investment capacity to external specialists.

Industry participants say the move reflects a growing structural shift within multi-manager platforms, where firms seek to supplement internal trading teams with external allocations in order to manage rising asset bases and access additional sources of alpha.

Capula is understood to have made several such external investments as part of its broader portfolio construction approach. The firm manages roughly $35bn in assets and is known for its focus on relative-value strategies across fixed income, currencies and related macro instruments.

Cinctive Capital Management, founded by Richard Schimel and Lawrence Sapanski, launched in 2019 with around $1bn in assets under management and initially concentrated on equity strategies before expanding into macro and quantitative approaches.

The firm has undergone a period of restructuring in recent years, including the consolidation of its equity and macro strategies into a single flagship fund in 2024. More recently, performance has shown signs of stabilisation, with reported gains of around 5% through April this year.

Capula, founded by Yan Huo in 2005 following his role in building JPMorgan’s proprietary fixed income trading operations, has expanded its footprint in multi-strategy investing in recent years. The firm has also strengthened its senior investment bench with hires from major multi-manager platforms as it continues to broaden its investment capabilities.