One of hedge fund Millennium’s top quants left for a sovereign wealth fund

It’s not hard to see the appeal of working in the UAE. The sun and sea, the lack of income tax… And a chance to get a promotion with a firm that has 15 times as many assets under management as your previous employer.

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Naveed Malik spent just shy of four years at hedge fund Millennium in New York as global head of systematic data for the fund. He was at Cubist Systematic Strategies, the quant fund division of Point72, for 6 years before that, also as head of data.

Malik joined the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) this week to be its global head of quantitative research and development. He’s not the first senior quant to join the fund recently, with it also adding BofA head of central risk books technology Rahul Mundke earlier this year.

The implication seems to be at ADIA that Marcos Lopez de Prado, also global head of research and development at the fund and who was in charge of building the “supergroup of quant investing”, has either now left the building or is sharing the stage.

Abu Dhabi is a more natural choice for senior financiers than Dubai, although the two cities have a lot in common otherwise. It’s easier for Abu Dhabi to attract bigger names directly, too, on account of ADIA being three times bigger (in terms of assets under management) than its Dubai-based rival, the Investment Corporation of Dubai.

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