Hedge Fund Rising Stars: Mick McGuire

Mick McGuire
Marcato Capital Management
If any hedge fund manager knows the publishing industry’s doldrums, it’s Richard (Mick) McGuire. From January 2009 until May 2010, McGuire, now 35, was chairman of Borders Group, the big-box book retailer that filed for Chapter 11 in February of last year. When he joined the board, McGuire was a partner in Pershing Square Capital Management, the $10.4 billion, New York–based hedge fund firm founded by William Ackman that had a big activist stake in Borders. Pershing’s Borders bet did not work out, but Pershing has many other investments that did and, as its third-most-senior employee, McGuire was involved in most of them. He decided to leave Pershing in 2009 and, with the support of Ackman, launch his own firm, San Francisco–based Marcato Capital Management, a fundamentals-driven, deep-research fund that started investing in October 2010. Like Pershing, Marcato is willing to take activist positions to get corporate managers to enhance shareholder value. But whereas his former firm tends to find opportunities in the large-cap market, McGuire is focusing on midcap companies. With $500 million in assets as of the first quarter of 2012, Marcato returned 15.1 percent through April 30 and has already concluded one successful activist campaign.