A former Millennium and Soros investor is starting his own fund.
Ryan Foster is launching Extant Capital with $200 million from New Holland Capital, a $6 billion alternative investor that invests in external funds, according to the firm. Foster most recently worked as a senior portfolio manager at Torsion Capital, a team within Izzy Englander’s $78 billion Millennium, where he traded for six years. Prior to Millennium, he spent nine years as a credit investor for George Soros’ firm.
The firm will focus on credit markets, and its day-one roster includes Peter Ellingboe as a senior portfolio manager. Ellingboe previously worked as a portfolio manager for Walleye, which he joined last year, and Verition, where he spent more than five years.
“Ryan is a highly skilled credit manager with a strong track record in constructing credit-focused absolute return strategies that provide unique exposure to dislocations within the market,” said Scott Radke, New Holland’s CEO and co-CIO, in the release.
Extant is the latest addition to New Holland’s roster of external money managers, which now numbers more than 40. Firms backed by the New York-based firm include former Bridgewater executive Paul Podolsky’s Kate Capital, Centiva’s onetime European credit head Terrence Matthews’ Athlone Investment Management, and ex-Eisler volatility portfolio manager Hardeep Jutti’s new fund.
New Holland started as an investment advisor for Dutch pension plans and has since become independent. While the firm expects a majority of its investments to continue to be in externally run managers, New Holland is building up its internal team of traders, Radke told Business Insider in July.
The firm’s new unit, Plum Island, will focus on money managers who do not want to run their own company and has hired former North Rock Capital COO Omar Qaiser to lead it.
Foster is the latest Millennium portfolio manager to start his own firm. Some of the industry’s most notable launches in recent years include alumni of Englander’s manager, such as his former chief investment officer Bobby Jain, the founder of Jain Global, and Diego Megia, who started London-based Taula Capital with money from Millennium.
