Julian Barnett, the former star-performing manager of the Polar Capital Paragon fund, is shutting down his Ridley Park Capital operation after concluding that his style of long-term concentrated equity investing is not suited to running pooled funds in the current market environment.
Since launching his own Ridley Park Paragon long/short equity fund in May 2010, more than a year after leaving Polar at the start of 2009, the performance has been disappointing. After a good start in 2010, the fund went on to lose 27% in 2011 and is up this year by 6.5% to the end of October (despite losing 10% in May).
Although the fund’s assets under management have reduced by around 40% from their launch size of some $350 million as a result of the...