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Eileen Murray, co-chief executive officer of Bridgewater Associates LP, speaks during the Bloomberg Business of Equality conference in New York, U.S., on Tuesday, May 8, 2018.
Mark Kauzlarich | Bloomberg | Getty Images
A co-CEO of the world’s largest hedge fund, Bridgewater Associates, is considering leaving the fund, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.
Eileen Murray, who has been with the fund for more than a decade, has been approached by Wells Fargo about its open executive role, the Journal said.
Murray has spoken both internally and externally about leaving Bridgewater, people familiar with the matter told the Journal.
Wells Fargo has been searching for a CEO since Tim Sloan stepped down in March after the three-decade Wells Fargo veteran was unable to rectify a scandal his predecessor left. The scandal involved employees at the fourth-biggest U.S. bank creating fake accounts to meet sales quotas.
Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett, whose company owned more than $20 billion worth of Wells Fargo stock at the end of last year, didn’t approve of the way Sloan left the company, saying he was forced out by unnecessary political pressure.
“I was 100% behind Tim Sloan the day it was announced he resigned,” Buffett told CNBC’s Becky Quick on Thursday, ahead of Berkshire Hathaway‘s annual shareholder meeting in Omaha, Nebraska.
Buffett says that although there are plenty of qualified Wall Street bankers to fill Sloan’s place, any banker who “is good enough to take the job shouldn’t want it.” Buffett said that anyone in that role would be a “pinata” from now until election time and would face scrutiny from politicians trying to make a political statement.
Murray, 61, would be the ultimate Wall Street banker to fill the role, having leadership roles at Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse during her two decades-plus tenure in the financial services industry, according to Bridgewater’s company website.
Murray is reportedly not unhappy in her role at Bridgewater. Since joining the Ray Dalio-founded fund in 2008 Murray has spearheaded its partnership with BNY Mellon and Northern Trust, overseen Bridgewater’s long-term real estate fulfillment strategy and started the firm’s Diversity and Inclusion Council.
Bridgewater is not only the world’s largest hedge fund with about $160 billion assets under management, but the fund posts returns that regularly outperform the benchmark indexes as well as its peers. Bridgewater’s flagship Pure Alpha fund finished 2018 with a 14.6% return of net fees, a person with knowledge of the matter told CNBC.
Bridgewater Associates could not be immediately reached for comment. Wells Fargo declined to comment.
Here’s the full Wall Street Journal story.
