Former Millennium Management portfolio manager Andrew Dodson is setting up an oil-trading hedge fund, seeking to capitalize on the shrinking commodities fund sector.
“Very simply, the opportunity set is the richest it’s been in a number of years, and there are the fewest funds now than in the last 10 to 15 years,” Dodson told Institutional Investor by phone Friday. “It’s the right time for a new entrant to buck the trend of fund closures.”
Two of the most famous figures in oil trading — T. Boone Pickens and Andrew Hall — closed their main funds over the past several months. Macro commodity firm Jamison Capital Partners followed in late January.
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Dodson began raising capital for London-based Philipp Oil approximately two months ago, he said, and is targeting $500 million in assets. He plans to begin trading this summer.
In late 2015, Dodson, now 38, joined the expanding commodities desk at Izzy Englander’s Millennium Management as a portfolio manager. He departed after about a year-and-a-half.
Before working at Millennium, Dodson led non-U.S. oil trading at Brazilian bank BTG Pactual.
Dodson incorporated Philipp Advisors LLP early last month in the U.K., records show — the company behind the Philipp Oil fund.
