SAC Capital Advisors, the hedge-fund firm that agreed last year to pay a record fine to settle insider-trading charges, hired Palantir Technologies, a data-analysis software maker, to boost surveillance.
“We have asked ourselves if there are ways to better detect improper activity and to create a clearer picture of the different types and sources of information that enter the firm,” SAC President Thomas Conheeney said in a memo to employees Wednesday.
SAC in November pled guilty to securities fraud and agreed to pay $1.8 billion to settle allegations of insider trading.
As part of the settlement with prosecutors, founder Steven A. Cohen, 57, agreed to close his hedge fund and return client money.
The office will continue to manage his $11 billion fortune.
SAC, based in Stamford, Conn., hired Palantir after inviting the Palo Alto, Calif.-based company nine months ago to embed a team within its compliance and technology group, Conheeney said in the memo.
Peter Thiel, the venture capitalist and early Facebook investor, in 2004 co-founded Palantir.
The company also counts In-Q-Tel, the venture arm of the Central Intelligence Agency, among its investors.
Jonathan Gasthalter, a spokesman for SAC at Sard Verbinnen, declined to comment on the hiring, which was reported earlier by CNBC.