Bridgewater Hires OTPP's Former CIO Ziad Hindo
Bridgewater Associates is bringing on Ziad Hindo, the former chief investment officer of one of Canada’s largest pension funds, as a senior adviser in its new total portfolio strategies department, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Hindo, who spent 23 years at the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, is the latest high-profile hire at the giant hedge fund since Nir Bar Dea became sole chief executive of the firm last year.
He’ll report to Bridgewater’s head of total portfolio strategies, Joanna Alpert, and work closely with co-CIOs Karen Karniol-Tambour and Bob Prince, said the person, speaking on condition they not be identified speaking about an internal matter.
Hindo held a number of senior investment roles at the Ontario fund before becoming CIO in 2018. He left the pension last year.
Bridgewater, founded by Ray Dalio and now the world’s biggest hedge fund firm, hired macro trading specialist Ben Melkman earlier this year as part of Bar Dea’s efforts to expand the firm’s talent pool.
Bridgewater’s Pure Alpha fund has climbed 14.4% this year through June 26 after more than a decade of mostly lackluster returns, including a 7.6% loss in 2023.
Alright, it's Thursday, long weekend coming up and wanted to bring this story up as it caught my attention yesterday.
I posted it on LinkedIn here stating: "So Ziad lands a gig at Bridgewater! Good for him but the optics of this don't look super clean especially since Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan is a big investor in their funds. Anyway, good for him, wish him well."
That prompted this reply from HOOPP's CIO Michael Wissell:
I greatly respect your ethics Leo but in this case I might, with respect, disagree. Ziad has no influence on OTPP (as you know in this trade departing employees are respected but are truly unteathered from their firms) and so Bridgwater has no reason to seek anything but a great investor expert in the pension industry. A win for both sides. Ziad did not hire Bridgwater at OTPP, I did. He has zero conflict here.
To which I replied:
I clearly remember being the first in Canada (among Maple 8) to allocate to Bridgewater Associates back in 2002 when managing the directional hedge fund portfolio at Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ). I also clearly remember a conversation with Ron Mock at the time telling him to take a closer look at them as Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan had yet to invest with them (so he told me).
The point I’m making has nothing to do with Ziad Hindo’s skills and experience, clearly he’s an incredible investor, but would he have landed this job without that influence he had as CIO of the organization and regularly meeting the folks at Bridgewater? Doubt it.
In the US, there are rules against hiring anyone from a pension fund if they invested in a fund for a minimum period of three years (at least there used to be, not sure now).
Anyway, like I said, it’s done and I wish Ziad well and lots of success there. He’s in the major leagues now and competing with the best of the best.
Now, I knew my post was going to stir up a bit of a hornet's nest, I didn't mince my words and purposely wrote what I felt because I'm sure a lot of other people were thinking it too.
I want to make it perfectly clear, I have nothing against Ziad Hindo or Michael Wissell.
They're both friends, former colleagues and both are great CIOs who benefited by learning from some of the best in the business (Bob Bertram, Neil Petroff, Jim Keohane and Jeff Wendling for Michael over at HOOPP).
The reason why I wrote that post on LinkedIn wasn't to piss off Ziad, Bridgewater or anyone else, it really was about optics and how being in a privileged position allows you to benefit afterwards.
No doubt, Ziad wasn't the one in charge of investing in Bridgewater and nowadays, almost everyone invests in Bridgewater, but he was the CIO of a major pension plan and met with them on numerous occasions.
In fact, Ziad even acknowledged this in a post on LinkedIn announcing he is joining Bridgewater:
So what? Nothing wrong with that, I too have had interesting conversations with the folks at Bridgewater as have plenty of other allocators in the world.
My point in all this is would Bridgewater have entertained hiring Ziad Hindo if he wasn't the CIO at Teachers' and they didn't already know him well? Of course not.
I can say the same thing about BlackRock hiring Mark Wiseman back in the day away from CPPIB. Would that have ever happened if he wasn't CEO of CPP Investments? Not in a million years.
Would Carlyle have ever hired Mark Jenkins away from CPPIB if they didn't know him well through their relationships? Fat chance.
Why did Macky Tall head to Carlyle soon after he didn't get the top job at CDPQ?
Why did Martin Laguerre join Warburg Pincus soon after leaving CDPQ as a senior advisor working with its Capital Solutions, Financial Services and Business Services groups?
How did André Collin leave PSP back in 2007 to join Lone Star Funds where he remains today as President, Commercial Real Estate Funds, after he invested billions in that fund while at PSP and previously as head of Cadim at CDPQ?
I can go on and on and give you other examples like this where the optics aren't "clean" and in some cases, downright dirty.
And again, let me be clear, I have nothing against these people, even Collin who I disliked working with at PSP, he did earn his keep working like a dog for Grayken but there's no way in hell he would have landed that job without first investing billions in Lone Star.
Back to Ziad Hindo and Bridgewater.
I meant what I said, good for him, he's in the major leagues now and is competing with the best of the best.
I was definitely taken aback when OTPP announced last September that Ziad was departing the organization and was being replaced by Gillian Brown and Stephen McLennan.
I honestly didn't see that coming just as I didn't see it coming recently that PSP's CIO Eduard van Gerlderen would be leaving that organization.
Executive shakeups happen and CEOs make tough decisions, decisions that we are not privy to all the information before they make them (when CEOs and CIOs clash on strategy, one loses out and it’s not the CEO).
Having said this, with Ziad joining Bridgewater as a senior adviser not even a year after his departure from Teachers' was announced, you have to wonder if some back-room deal was struck to facilitate this arrangement.
Don't shoot the messenger, I'm not the only one thinking this and while I'm truly happy Ziad landed on his feet (more like struck gold) and wish him much success, it's things like this and other examples I cited that whether you like it or not tarnish the pristine governance at Canada's venerable Maple Eight.
And I'll share something else with you. Ziad Hindo was one of the highest paid pension CIOs in the pension world, pulling in a little over $4 million a year when he left Teachers'. He's not going to Bridgewater for the money and if he wanted, he could have risked his own capital to start his own fund.
I realize this is far from easy, trust me, I know how hard it is to start a hedge fund but in a way, I would have respected that decision a lot more.
My smell test is always this: Would a Bob Bertram or Neil Petroff -- arguably the two best CIOs ever in Canada's pension world -- have joined Bridgewater soon after leaving OTPP?
Maybe but I highly doubt it.
Those are my opinions, you don't have to agree with me, at least I have the courage to post my honest thoughts. And no, I'm not looking to piss anyone off, just wanted to share my thoughts here.
Before I forget, since it is the long weekend, take the time to read this excellent article on why a perfect recession indicator doesn't exist any longer.
I remain in the hard landing camp but still trading biotech and other shares and won't get worried till I hear those two alarming words: "credit crisis".
I wish everyone a nice, long weekend and one more technical note, I reached 30,000 contacts on LinkledIn and unbeknownst to me, members are only allowed up to 30,000 1st-degree connections.
What a stupid rule, that means to accept new connections, I have to remove old ones which isn't what I really want to do (truth be told, I don't know 99% of my connections, lol).
Anyways, wish everyone a great Labour Day weekend and remember, I don't have the monopoly of wisdom on everything related to pensions and investments, just adding my two cents.
Below, a year ago, then Co-CEO (now CEO) Nir Bar Dea describes the work required to complete a successful generational transition at Bridgewater and his vision for the firm's future across talent, culture, and business priorities.
Take the time to listen to him, very interesting person and he seems to be doing a great job at Bridgewater so far but I need to see how the Fund performs when the going gets tough again to really make a final judgment.
Update: Someone pointed out to me that this isn't the first time Bridgewater hires an allocator. In March 2017, Bridgewater hired former ATP chief Carsten Svendevad:
Carsten Stendevad, who resigned as CEO of Danish pension fund ATP in August, is to join US hedge fund giant Bridgewater Associates.
Stendevad will work with the Connecticut-based firm for a year as part of a new “senior fellowship program”, Bridgewater founder Ray Dalio said in a letter to clients, which was also posted on LinkedIn.
Dalio said the programme would “bring highly distinguished individuals into Bridgewater for a year to explore what our culture is like and lend their expertise and insights to our organization”.
“We expect a limited number of such special people to join this program in the future,” he added.
Stendevad left ATP last year after three years at the helm, citing family reasons. The DKK859bn (€115.6bn) pension fund named Christian Hyldahl as his successor in October.
ATP uses a similar “all-weather” investment strategy to that employed by Dalio since he founded the hedge fund group in 1975. The model was in part inspired by Bridgewater, and the two organisations have worked together for more than a decade discussing multi-asset issues.
ATP’s new CIO, Kasper Ahrndt Lorenzen, told IPE last year that the Danish pension’s multi-factor method was also indebted to the thinking of another US investment manager, AQR, and the academic field of “financial economics” more generally.
Not sure if Ziad's hiring is part of the "senior fellowship program" (doesn't sound like it) but another person told me straight out: "It's about time that Canada's large pension funds sets firm rules that no fund they invest with can hire an employee of theirs for a minimum period of three years, this smacks of yet another back-room deal."
I also embedded Impact Theory with Tom Bilyeu where he had a critical discussion with Bridgewater founder Ray Dalio. Ray delivers a powerful warning about the looming economic crisis, the potential for a US recession, and the odds of a global conflict that could reshape our world in 2024.
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