A top quant researcher who resigned from systematic trading firm Jump Trading Group last week is getting backing from hedge fund giant Millennium Management, Business Insider has learned.
Yiming Zhang, one of Jump’s most senior researchers and a 17-year veteran of the firm, is expected to start as an external manager for Millennium on an exclusive basis after his non-compete restrictions expire, people familiar with the matter said.
Jump, like many secretive quant trading firms, is well-known for enforcing lengthy non-compete provisions, which can last two years even for non-executive employees.
A Millennium spokesman declined to comment. Zhang did not respond to a request for comment.
A Jump representative did not respond to a request for comment. After the resignations last week of Zhang and fellow senior researcher Darko Kirovski, Jump cofounder Paul Gurinas told Business Insider in a statement: “Yiming and Darko were instrumental in Jump’s growth over the last 17 years, and we’ll be forever grateful for that. They will be friends of the firm forever.”
Zhang and Kirovski were influential researchers at Jump Core Strategies, one of the trading firm’s largest and most profitable units.
Kirovski’s plans after leaving Jump could not be learned. He did not respond to a request for comment.
Millennium, which manages $84 billion, has hundreds of internal teams trading across the spectrum of hedge fund strategies. In recent years, however, it has also become one of the biggest backers of external hedge fund talent, seeding experienced investors with capital, often through separately managed accounts.
