Brian Sack, formerly a Managing Director at DE Shaw and Head of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s markets group, has joined the $21bn multi-strategy hedge fund Balyasny Asset Management, according to a report by Bloomberg.
After a tenure of nearly a decade at DE Shaw, where he most recently held the position of Director of Global Economics, Sack started his new roles of Portfolio Manager and Head of Macro Strategy at Balyasny on Monday. He will report to Steven Goldberg, who leads the firm’s macro strategy, helmed by more than 40 Portfolio Managers.
Sack started his career at the Federal Reserve Board in 1997, eventually leading monetary and financial market analysis before his 2004 departure. According to the report, Sack helped reshape how the US central bank evaluates long-run inflation expectations and developed a bond-market measure known as the 5-year, 5-year forward breakeven rate. He also worked at the New York Fed before moving to DE Shaw.
Balyasny faced a challenging 2023, achieving a modest return of 2.4% and placing it among the weakest-performing multi-strategy funds. In contrast, DE Shaw’s Composite fund recorded a 9.6% gain in 2023. The performance of Balyasny was impacted by misaligned equity bets, while successful macro and commodity wagers contributed to gains.
