Zoe Cruz, the former high-flying Morgan Stanley executive who was in line to succeed CEO John Mack before the financial meltdown, is hitting rough waters with her new hedge fund, Voras Capital Management.
Several key employees have either left or plan to leave the firm, which has had trouble raising money from investors, The Post has learned. The New York firm is also shuttering its credit fund — one of just two Voras funds.
“As credit has rallied over the last several years there was little appetite for long-term lockups in a credit fund, so Voras is closing its credit fund with a vast majority of the credit investors moving to the Voras Macro fund, which continues to grow and is performing with its peers,” a Voras spokesman told The Post. The personnel changes “are associated with the closing of the credit fund,” he said.
Ellen Brunsberg, who was tapped to run Voras’ credit fund out of London, jumped ship earlier this year. She was followed recently by David Markus, a corporate bond expert.
Voras’ head of marketing and investor relations is no longer there, while CFO Richard Bani is on his way out the door, according to one source.
Cruz, who’s hard-charging style earned her the nickname “Cruz Missile” at Morgan Stanley, had been groomed by Mack to lead the bank before she was forced to resign in 2007, following a $3.7 billion loss from mortgage investments.
Just a few months later, Cruz made the cover of New York magazine under the headline, “They fired the most powerful woman on Wall Street.”
Cruz has faced difficulties raising money for Voras since it launched in 2009, sources said. Last August, reports said she had raised around $200 million, but people close to the firm said she’s struggled to raise additional money — in either fund — since then.
Just one-third of the money raised had been allocated to the credit fund, with the rest going to the macro fund, which Cruz manages, leaving the credit fund lacking the “critical mass” needed to get it off the ground, said a person close to the firm.