Inside the changes at $37 billion Balyasny's Corbets stock-picking unit

A pair of well-known investors at Dmitry Balyasny’s Corbets Capital unit left the $37 billion hedge fund earlier this month.

Thomas Stephens and Kevin Cottrell are no longer at Balyasny Asset Management, two people familiar with the matter tell Business Insider.

Stephens ran Corbets, which focuses on fundamental stock-picking strategies, from its launch in 2022 until roughly a year ago, a person close to the manager said.

He also ran a portfolio focused on financial services companies up until recently. He had been at the firm since 2018 after stints managing money for Izzy Englander’s Millennium Management and Ken Griffin’s Citadel.

Cottrell, a tech-focused portfolio manager, joined the unit at the end of 2023 after managing his own fund, KCL Capital. He also previously traded for Steve Cohen at Point72 Asset Management.

Corbetsis now led by a trio of portfolio managers: Alberto Mann, Mitul Shah, and David Corwin, the person said.

The firm does not break out performance by unit, but Balyasny has struggled so far this year, gaining less than 1% through September, Business Insider previously reported.

Balyasny declined to comment. Stephens and Cottrell did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Corbets, named after a double-black ski run in Wyoming, where Balyasny owns a home, had 15 portfolio management teams and nearly 100 investment professionals as of the start of June, according to the unit’s website. The bios of both Stephens and Cottrell have been removed.

Corbets also lost its head of trading, Ali Lombardo, earlier this year; she has since joined Viking Global in the same role, taking over for Stuart Brown. Her replacement — former professional hockey player Ted Drury,who is also the former trading head of UBS’s O’Connor fund and brother of NHL great Chris Drury— is starting next week, the person close to Balyasny said.

The firm has also added PMs this year: one-time rising star Ricky Mewanifrom Citadel, former Marshall Wace analyst Mirza Klis, and healthcare-focused Stephen Suarez from Hudson Bay.

While Balyasny has dozens of stock-picking PMs internally, the Corbets unit is one of two internal brands that trades stocks solely for Balyasny. Former Point72 investor Peter Goodwin runs Longaeva Partners, which began trading roughly a year ago.

There are several reasons large platforms like Balyasny use different brands to invest in the same asset class. Groups often have a specific style or geography, such as Citadel’s International Equities unit, one of Griffin’s four stock-picking businesses that invests in non-US companies.

It can also help with retention and recruitment by allowing talented people to start something entrepreneurial while still keeping them within the firm, as funds come up with creative solutions to combat the ongoing talent war.

For stock-picking units in particular, multiple brands are also helpful for gaining access to executives at public companies, as each unit can pay the sell-side and be treated as a unique entity. Corporate access, as Business Insider previously covered, has become an increasingly valuable resource as the headcounts of the biggest hedge funds swell.