The LSE Directory / Hedge funds
Capital Fund Management (CFM) is a Paris-headquartered quantitative asset manager that runs systematic, computer-driven trading strategies across global futures, equities, bonds, currencies and commodities markets. Its main programs, Stratus, Discus, Systematic Global Macro, Trend Following and Cumulus, apply statistical and machine learning models to large volumes of market and alternative data to generate trading signals, size positions and execute orders with limited day-to-day human discretion, aiming for returns that are largely uncorrelated with traditional stock and bond indices. The firm sets itself apart from many quant hedge fund peers with an academic, research-first culture rather than a single star-trader model. It is run by a multi-person leadership team rather than a founder figurehead, encourages researchers, many recruited straight from physics PhD programmes, to publish in peer-reviewed journals, and funds research partnerships with Imperial College London, Ecole normale superieure, Ecole Polytechnique and Columbia University. Its Discus program, one of its oldest, trades over 100 futures and forward markets combining fundamental and technical signals, while its newer Cumulus program blends market-neutral and directional sleeves with explicit defensive overlays. CFM was founded in 1991 by Jean-Pierre Aguilar and Bruno Combier, and took its distinctive scientific bent from a 2000 merger with Science & Finance, a research-driven trading firm founded in 1994 by physicist Jean-Philippe Bouchaud. Following Aguilar's death in 2009, leadership passed to a board including Bouchaud, president Philippe Jordan, Marc Potters and Jacques Sauliere. The firm is registered with the US SEC as an investment adviser and regulated in France by the Autorite des marches financiers as a UCITS portfolio management company. Assets under management have grown from roughly $6.5 billion five years ago to about $29 billion as of mid-2026, with headcount rising from around 260 in 2020 to near 450, split mainly between its Paris headquarters and offices in New York and London. CFM has been expanding its US presence and broadening its investor base beyond its traditional institutional client roster. It signed a long-term lease in 2026 for a larger New York office at 510 Madison Avenue, and since early 2025 has partnered with Stifel and iCapital to distribute strategies such as the Discus fund to private wealth clients, while its longest-running flagship Stratus fund remains closed to new investors.
