Marshall Wace, one of London’s largest hedge funds, saw its earnings tumble by almost two-thirds last year.
The firm’s accounts, filed this week at Companies House, show that its profit came to £192 million ($238 million) in the year ended February 2024, a 64% plunge from the previous year.
Marshall Wace saw its turnover drop to £768 million last year, after reporting more than £1.2 billion a year earlier. The decline was mostly attributed to the firm’s performance fees, which fell 73% last year.
Marshall Wace was cofounded by Paul Marshall and Ian Wace in London in 1997. Marshall is the firm’s chairman and chief investment officer, while Wace serves as its CEO. The firm now employs more than 700 staff across six offices.
Marshall Wace is best known for its Market Neutral Tops fund and its flagship Eureka fund, which posted returns of 22.6% and 14.3%, respectively, according to a Reuters report.
In 2015, private equity firm KKR acquired a roughly 25% stake in the hedge fund that was subsequently increased to almost 40%. Under the partnership with the U.S. financial giant, Marshall Wace has more than trebled its assets under management to almost $71 billion.
Marshall has become one of the U.K.’s most influential media moguls in recent years. In September, he agreed to buy the politically influential magazine, The Spectator, for £100 million.
His other media interests include ownership of news and opinion website UnHerd as well as co-ownership of broadcaster GB News. The loss-making news channel, which has only been operating for three years, surpassed Sky News in monthly live TV ratings for the first time last year, according to data from Barb, the TV rating agency.
Marshall had also led a consortium backed by the U.S. hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin, which had sought to acquire The Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph, but the group ultimately abandoned their bid.
Formerly a member of the Liberal Democrats, Marshall ran unsuccessfully for a parliamentary seat in 1987 before turning to finance. His political allegiance later swung to the Conservative Party at around the time of the European Union membership referendum in 2016, when he donated £100,000 to the Vote Leave campaign. His fellow cofounder Wace took the opposite view on the issue, and donated the same amount to The In Campaign.
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