Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates, said on Tuesday that he’s retiring from the management of the world’s biggest hedge fund manager.
When Dalio stepped down as co-CEO of the firm in 2017, he'd said in a letter posted on LinkedIn that "I'm excited about this change and expect to remain a professional investor at Bridgewater until I die or until those running Bridgewater don't want me anymore."
But on Sept. 30, he transferred all his voting rights to the firm’s board and gave up his post as one of Bridgewater’s three co-chief investment officers.
Bridgewater has about $150 billion of assets under management, Bloomberg reported.
Dalio, 73, a former commodities trader, will stay on the board, and his title will be founder and CIO mentor. Nir Bar Dea and Mark Bertolini are the firm's co-chief executives, while Greg Jensen and Bob Prince are the co-CIOs.
“I feel great about the people and machine now in control,” he wrote on a LinkedIn posting.
“This transition moment is the culmination of a 47-year journey from my starting Bridgewater with two people helping me in my two-bedroom apartment to a multi-generation institution with 1,300 people that I’m helping.”
Performance Drew Customers
Bridgewater’s strong performance drew billions of dollars of investors’ money in the 2000s, though it slumped in the 2010s.
Bridgewater’s flagship Pure Alpha strategy soared 34.6% in this year through Sept. 30, according to Bloomberg. But the All Weather strategy, which is supposed to be more stable, dropped 27.2%.
Dalio personally has a net worth of $19 billion, according to Forbes.
He had a controversial management style known as “radical transparency,” where employees were free to criticize others. Some staffers didn’t take well to that and left the firm.
"Some people love this forthright way of operating and wouldn't want to work anywhere else, while others dislike it and leave,” Dalio wrote in the 2017 letter. “But nobody doubts that this unique culture is the force behind Bridgewater's unique success over the last 40 years."
While he’s giving up his management role, Dalio has no intention of ending his involvement with the firm. “Hopefully until I die, I will continue to be a mentor, an investor, and board member because I and they love doing those things together,” he said. “That's a dream come true.”
