Jain Global, the new $5.3bn hedge fund, is paying one senior PM a $250k salary

A mere six days from its launch, Jain Global is all the rage. Bobby Jain, the ex-co-chief investment officer at Millennium, has raised $5.3bn, making Jain Global the biggest launch since ExodusPoint. He reportedly employs 215 people, 42 of whom are portfolio managers. They are spread between offices in New York, Houston, London, Hong Kong, and Singapore.

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Although Jain spent seven years at Millennium, Business Insider says Jain Global might be more akin to Citadel than his former employer. The new firm reportedly plans to have “a centralized structure similar to Citadel’s or D. E. Shaw’s — where investors are not siloed from other teams and share resources like datasets and analytical tools.” However, it also intends to have “risk discipline more akin to Millennium,” which might be taken to imply that portfolio managers will be stopped out with no ifs and buts if they exceed their prescribed loss limits. 

Although Jain Global aspires to be like Citadel, though, there are some indications that it might differ in terms of pay. Recently filed H1B visa information for Jain Global in New York City says it recently recruited a senior portfolio manager following a “technology strategy” on a $250k salary and that two quant researchers were recently hired on salaries of $175k and $180k.

Jain Global didn’t respond to a request to comment on whether these salaries are representative, but the senior portfolio manager figure in particular looks low comparative to elsewhere. At Citadel, H1B data says more junior associate portfolio managers were hired on $250k to $275k salaries in 2023. Quant research salaries at Citadel are generally between $250k and $276k. 

The $250k figure might be an anomaly – it’s possible that other PMs who aren’t receiving H1B visas are paid more. However, the implication is that Jain Global might also be skewing its compensation towards performance bonuses. Bobby Jain said recently that the fund has been competing with private credit firms for talent, so scrimping may not be an option.

In time, Jain Global intends to be like Point72 and to train cheaper junior staff in-house. “Bobby and I are people who both have spent our careers mentoring people, investing in people — you don’t buy people; you invest in them,” Jain COO and ex-Bank of America MD Jonathan Barton told BI. The fund may be buying people on judicious salaries until the mentees are ready to go.

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