Business

MEDALLION FUND HITS A JACKPOT

Jim Simons, a man known for running one of the world’s most secretive, expensive and successful hedge funds, is on track to wow investors with another year of double-digit returns.

Simons’ $8 billion Medallion fund, the oldest of the three Renaissance Technologies funds, was up 48 percent at the end of July, net of fees, according to people familiar with the funds’ returns.

Medallion, which is funded mostly by Renaissance insiders, charges a whopping 49 percent in fees, including a 5 percent management fee and 44 percent incentive fee.

That’s high even by the standards of an already costly industry – the industry average is a 2 percent management fee and a 20 percent incentive fee – but with such eye-popping returns, no one’s likely to complain.

Last year, Medallion earned upward of 85 percent. And despite tumultuous markets last month, which slammed some of the year’s best performing funds, Medallion was up nearly 7 percent in July, The Post has learned.

Medallion, which specializes in lightening-fast trading directed by complicated computer models, does best when there’s volatility, people say.

Of course, not everything Simons touches turns to gold. The firm’s Renaissance Institutional Equities Fund, which was launched in 2005 for outside investors, now manages around $15 billion in assets, down from around $28 billion a year ago.