David Magerman spent more than two decades working for Renaissance Technologies, the enormously successful and secretive quantitative trading hedge fund founded by billionaire James Simons. Renaissance’s Medallion strategy, which is now only open to Renaissance’s employees and owners, is often viewed as the greatest hedge fund ever.
Magerman recently sued Renaissance Technologies’ co-CEO, Robert Mercer, for wrongful dismissal. Mercer has been an influential backer of Donald Trump and Magerman claims Mercer had him fired for expressing his political views in opposition to Trump. Mercer and Renaissance are not commenting on the lawsuit.
Founded in 1982 and now managing $44 billion, the mysterious Renaissance Technologies is viewed on Wall Street with wonder and amazement for Medallion’s ability to use math and computers to consistently churn out incredible returns. Some might find the details Magerman included about the hedge fund firm in his lawsuit just as in interesting as the conflict he has with Mercer.
Magerman filed his Renaissance Technologies 2015 employment agreement together with his complaint. It’s pretty straight forward and just seven pages long.
A research scientist and senior level employee who worked out of his Pennsylvania home, Magerman’s base salary at Renaissance was $251,212. Magerman claims his algorithms made billions of dollars for Renaissance and the bulk of his compensation came from the bonus he was paid semiannually, two installments based on the firm's performance made on June 30 and December 31.
According to the employment agreement, Renaissance Technologies has a bonus pool that is made up of half of the hedge fund firm’s net income from operations. The net income from operations equals the fees earned by Medallion, which charges a management fee of 5% of assets under management plus a performance fee of 36% of profits. The firm’s net income also includes management and performance fees collected from the other Renaissance hedge funds that are open to outside investors and charge much lower fees.
In Magerman’s case, his bonus was determined by the 12,500 points he was allocated towards the bonus pool. In his complaint against Mercer, Magerman says this amounted to "millions of dollars annually." The employment agreement is silent on what happens to the other 50% of Renaissance’s net income from operations, but it presumably goes to Simons and other owners of the firm.
Magerman got 30 vacation days annually at Renaissance. His noncompetition agreement prevented Magerman from working for one year after leaving Renaissance for any firm engaged in the business of mathematically-based trading of futures and securities. Magerman also agreed that upon being terminated he would immediately hand over all of Renaissance’s confidential information in his possession, including models and algorithms.
