Wikipedia

Point72 Asset Management

Point72 Asset Management is an American hedge fund. It was founded in 2014 by Steve Cohen as a family office,[9][10] after his previous company S.A.C. Capital Advisors pleaded guilty to insider trading charges. In 2018, the company reopened to external investors after a two-year ban and began accepting outside capital. The company's office is located in Stamford, Connecticut.

Point72 Asset Management, L.P.
TypePrivate
IndustryHedge fund
Founded2014; 12 years ago (2014)
FounderSteven A. Cohen
Headquarters
Stamford, Connecticut
Area served
Key people
  • Steven A. Cohen (Chairman, CEO, and President)
  • Ilya Gaysinskiy (CTO)
  • Gavin O’Connor (COO)
  • Harry Schwefel (Co-CIO)
AUMUS$45.7 billion (2026)[1]
OwnerSteven A. Cohen
Number of employees
3,000+ (2026)[2]
SubsidiariesEverpoint, Cubist Systematic Strategies, Point72 Ventures, Cohen Private Ventures
Websitepoint72.com
Footnotes
[3][4][5][6][7][8]

Background and history

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2014 to 2019

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Point72 has origins to 1992 with the founding of S.A.C. Capital Advisors, a group of hedge funds founded by Steve Cohen.[11] S.A.C pled guilty to federal charges in 2013 after an 11-year investigation into insider trading.[12] Point72 was founded in 2014 by Cohen as the successor to S.A.C.[13] with the bulk of S.A.C.'s assets being transferred to Point72.[citation needed] Under an S.E.C. agreement, Point72 was initially not allowed to manage money from outside investors.[12] Point72 also took measures to develop its legal and compliance departments, including hiring Vincent Tortorella as chief compliance and surveillance officer,[14][15] and Kevin J. O’Connor an in-house attorney.[16] Tortorella's compliance team included former CIA, FBI and SEC personnel.[17] Douglas D. Haynes was appointed president.[18][19]

In 2015, the firm created Point72 Academy,[20] a 15-month paid program to train college graduates to work for the firm.[21][22] That same year, the firm started Point72 Ventures, a venture capital unit.[23] Initially, Point72 Ventures focused on fintech startups before shifting focus to additional sectors such as investing in AI[23] and defense technology startups.[24][25]

In 2018, the restriction on managing outside money was lifted and Point72 opened its first hedge fund, securing $3 billion in capital from approximately 20 institutions.[26] Shaughnessy retired in 2018 and was replaced by Gavin O'Connor, who joined the firm from Goldman Sachs.[27] In March 2018, it was reported by the New York Times that Haynes resigned as president "amid [a] gender bias lawsuit, with Cohen assuming the role of president.[28][29]

2020 to present

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In August 2020, the firm closed to new money with just over $17 billion under management.[30][31][32]

In March 2020, Point72 hired Mo Grimeh as head of its macro investing business,[33] and created Point72 Hyperscale, a hybrid venture and private equity fund for early-stage AI technology companies.[34]

Point72 also has the "Nines" program which was renamed LaunchPoint in 2020. It trains portfolio managers to create a business plan and investing strategy, and build a team.[9][35] As of 2023, 50% of Point72's long/short managers were from LaunchPoint.[9]

In January 2021, along with Ken Griffin's Citadel Investments, Point72 contributed $750 million to a $2.75 billion emergency bailout of Melvin Capital, a hedge fund that had incurred deep losses in the GameStop short squeeze;[36][37][38] Melvin Capital is run by Gabe Plotkin, a former protégé of Steven Cohen and one of the managers of SAC whose trades were investigated by the SEC.[39][36][40][41] In the first half of 2021, Point72 was reported to have lost $500 million on its investment in Melvin Capital.[42]

In June 2025, Point72 Ventures helped fund series A for CX2, a military technology startup.[43] In 2025, Point72 Turion began as a stock-picking hedge fund focused on AI, with Reuters reporting the fund holding approximately $1.5 billion as of January 2025.[44]

Operations

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Point72 Asset Management operates as a multi-strategy hedge fund, employing discretionary long/short equity, systematic, macro, and venture capital strategies. The firm also manages internal proprietary capital and capital from select external investors.[45]

As of late 2025, Point72 reports managing approximately US$41.5 billion in assets and employing more than 3,000 people across offices in the United States, Europe, and Asia.[13][46][47]

In November 2025, the firm announced a structural reorganization of its equities division. Beginning January 1, 2026, its fundamental equities business will operate as two entities: the existing Point72 Equities, and a newly established affiliate, Valist Asset Management. The restructuring is aimed at enhancing investment flexibility and team specialization.[48][49]

Point72 is also expanding into private markets. In 2025, the firm began raising capital for a private credit strategy, targeting at least US$1 billion. This move reflects a broader industry trend of hedge funds entering alternative lending markets as institutional investors seek stable, yield-oriented alternatives to public debt.[45]

The firm also maintains a significant quantitative trading operation through its Cubist Systematic Strategies division, which employs data-driven and algorithmic strategies across global markets. In September 2025, Cubist replaced its head, Denis Dancanet, with Geoffrey Lauprete, formerly of WorldQuant.[50][51]

Gender bias lawsuits

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The firm has faced multiple lawsuits from employees alleging gender and pay discrimination.[52][53][54][55] In September 2020, Point72 settled a gender and pay discrimination suit brought by Lauren Bonner, the company's former Head of Talent Analytics.[56][57]

References

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  1. ↑ Kumar, Nishanth; Tetley, Liza (March 10, 2026). "Rokos Joins Hedge Funds Losing Money Last Week, Jain Gains". Bloomberg News.
  2. ↑ "About72". United States. Archived from the original on 2026-03-04. Retrieved 2026-03-11.
  3. ↑ "Leadership - Our Leaders". Point72. Retrieved 9 September 2025.
  4. ↑ Kishan, Saijel (October 22, 2015). "Point72's Haynes Says 'Cost of Being Excellent' Keeps Going Up". Bloomberg. Archived from the original on January 11, 2016. Retrieved January 7, 2016.
  5. ↑ point72.com. Homepage Archived 2016-03-05 at the Wayback Machine. Accessed 2016-03-01.
  6. ↑ Kate Kelly. The second coming of Steven Cohen Archived 2017-10-21 at the Wayback Machine. CNBC. 2016-01-11. Accessed 2016-03-01.
  7. ↑ "Locations - Meet Us Where Great Talent Lives". Point72. Retrieved 9 September 2025.
  8. ↑ Foxman, Simone (March 10, 2015). "Cohen's Firm said to hire 30 seeking edge in public data". Bloomberg. Archived from the original on 2017-02-25. Retrieved 2017-03-11.
  9. 1 2 3 Abrego, Michelle (2 October 2023). "Inside Point72's boot camp for developing all-star portfolio managers, where Steve Cohen is known to grill up-and-comers who think they're ready for the big time". businessinsider.com. Archived from the original on 25 September 2023. The billionaire opened Point72 in 2014 as a family office...LaunchPoint is an incubator, a training ground for promising analysts to build a team and test their strategies through mock portfolios...More than 70 long/short managers have launched through LaunchPoint... They make up 50% of the firm's 100 long/short managers...The candidates come forward with detailed business plans and spend months fine-tuning their investing approach with a paper book that stimulates their portfolio... Weiner took over in 2020 and rebranded the program from Nines ... to LaunchPoint to reflect better what it did.
  10. ↑ Goldstein, Matthew (25 December 2017). "Steven Cohen Plans a New Hedge Fund. Investors Are Wary". nytimes.com. Archived from the original on 25 December 2017. $11 billion family office called Point72 Asset Management.
  11. ↑ Gapper, John (16 February 2017). "How Steven Cohen survived an insider trading scandal". Financial Times. Nikkei. Retrieved 23 May 2017.
  12. 1 2 Protess, Ben; Lattman, Peter (4 November 2013). "After a Decade, SAC Capital Blinks". New York Times. No. DealBook. New York, N.Y., United States. The New York Times Company. p. B1. Archived from the original on 6 November 2013. Retrieved 6 November 2013.
  13. 1 2 "Steven A. Cohen - Point72 Asset Management". Point72 Asset Management. Archived from the original on 2017-04-28. Retrieved 2017-04-27.
  14. ↑ Burton, Katherine (8 April 2014). "Cohen Hires Tortorella as Surveillance Chief for Point72". bloomberg.com. Archived from the original on 15 February 2015. Billionaire Steve Cohen hired Vincent Tortorella as chief surveillance officer for Point72 Asset Management LP.
  15. ↑ Levy, Rachael (July 2016). "Billionaire investor Steve Cohen has a new mantra, and this is the guy enforcing it". businessinsider.com. Archived from the original on 27 July 2016. Vincent "Vinny" Tortorella, a cheery Italian-American and former federal prosecutor, is the man charged with the task, having taken over as head of Point72's compliance and surveillance unit in 2014.
  16. ↑ Chung, Juliet; Strasburg, Jenny (6 May 2015). "Point72 Hires Ex-U.S. Attorney Kevin O'Connor as New General Counsel". wsj.com. Point72 Hires Ex-U.S. Attorney Kevin O'Connor as New General Counsel.
  17. ↑ Delevingne, Lawrence; Ablan, Jennifer (18 March 2016). "Steve Cohen's Point72 says it has perfect U.S. compliance". reuters.com. The compliance staff includes former personnel from the Central Intelligence Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation and Securities and Exchange Commission.
  18. ↑ Goldstein, Matthew (6 May 2015). "Point72 Hires Ex-Prosecutor as General Counsel". New York Times. No. DealBook. Archived from the original on 6 December 2019. Retrieved 6 December 2019.
  19. ↑ Burton, Katherine (May 20, 2015). "IBM's O'Shaughnessy Hired as COO by Point72". Bloomberg. Archived from the original on 2016-03-25. Retrieved 2017-03-11.
  20. ↑ Kumar, Nishant; Tetley, Liza (20 June 2024). "Hedge Fund Talent Schools Are Looking for the Perfect Trader". Bloomberg.
  21. ↑ Crowe, Portia (1 October 2015). "Inside Steve Cohen's groundbreaking 'Academy' poaching young talent from Wall Street". Business Insider.
  22. ↑ Fortado, Lindsay; Childs, Mary (31 October 2016). "Billionaire Steven Cohen's training academy turns global". Financial Times.
  23. 1 2 Weiss, Miles (3 May 2016). "Cohen's Point72 Starts Venture Unit to Fund Financial Technology". bloomberg.com. Archived from the original on 4 May 2016. Unit will provide money, testing grounds for fintech startups. Artificial intelligence 'coming but not here yet,' Cohen says. Billionaire Steven Cohen's investment firm is starting a venture capital unit to fund and help develop financial technology for asset managers...Cohen's firm, Point72 Asset Management, set up the new investment vehicle in March under the name Point72 Ventures... It will provide early stage capital, along with advice and feedback, to startups in fields such as data mining, artificial intelligence, and machine learning.
  24. ↑ Parmar, Hema (31 July 2025). "Point72 Preps First Venture Fund for Clients, Focuses on Defense". bloomberg.com. Point72 Asset Management is raising its first venture capital fund for clients, seeking to bet on the "urgent" need for defense technology startups...investments in defense, space, energy and security startups.
  25. ↑ Mason, Emily; Konrad, Alex (11 July 2024). "Billionaire Steve Cohen's Point72 Ventures Lays Off Fintech Team In Pivot Towards AI". forbes.com. Archived from the original on 2 July 2024. The firm will instead shift more focus to investing in artificial intelligence and defense technology startups.
  26. ↑ Levy, Rachael (11 January 2018). "Steve Cohen Points72 Hedge Fund Amasses 3 Billion Closing to Investors". Business Insider. Retrieved 9 September 2025.
  27. ↑ Hall, Phil (September 20, 2018). "Two new executives named at Point72". Daily Voice. Archived from the original on April 16, 2019. Retrieved April 24, 2019.
  28. ↑ Goldstein, Matthew; Silver-Greenberg, Jessica (17 March 2018). "President of Steven Cohen's Investment Firm Quits Amid Gender Bias Lawsuit". New York Times. Archived from the original on 28 May 2020. Retrieved 6 December 2019.
  29. ↑ English, Carleton; DeGregory, Priscilla (2019-07-03). "Hedgie claims misogyny accusations made him 'unemployable'". New York Post. Archived from the original on 2020-10-20. Retrieved 2020-09-03.
  30. ↑ Picker, Leslie (Jul 30, 2020). "Steve Cohen's Point72 closing to new money". CNBC. Archived from the original on August 11, 2020.
  31. ↑ McDonald, Michael (July 29, 2020). "Steve Cohen's Point72 Closing to New Money After Raising $10 Billion". Bloomberg. Archived from the original on 2020-09-25.
  32. ↑ "Point72 closing to new money after raising $10 billion". Pensions & Investments. 2020-07-30. Archived from the original on 2020-09-15. Retrieved 2020-09-03.
  33. ↑ Kumar, Nishant (11 December 2023). "Billionaire Steve Cohen Pushes Point72 Deeper Into Macro Trading". Bloomberg.
  34. ↑ Chung, Juliet; Roof, Katie (6 March 2020). "Steven A. Cohen Raising New Fund to Invest in Private Companies". WSJ.
  35. ↑ Kumar, Nishant; Tetley, Liza (20 June 2024). "Hedge Fund Talent Schools Are Looking for the Perfect Trader". bloomberg.com. Cohen's unofficial name of the "Nine" program... It's now known as LaunchPoint.
  36. 1 2 "Citadel, Point72 Back Melvin With $2.75 Billion After Losses". Bloomberg. January 25, 2021.
  37. ↑ "Steve Cohen's Point72 Raises $1.5 Billion After Melvin Capital Infusion". Bloomberg. February 2, 2021.
  38. ↑ "Steve Cohen's Point72 raises $1.5 billion after supporting Melvin Capital during the GameStop saga, report says". Business Insider. 2025-02-03. Retrieved 2021-07-12.
  39. ↑ Chung, Juliet (2021-01-25). "WSJ News Exclusive | Citadel, Point72 to Invest $2.75 Billion Into Melvin Capital Management". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 2021-07-12.
  40. ↑ "SAC's top consumer trader draws scrutiny from U.S. authorities". Reuters. 2012-12-19. Retrieved 2021-07-12.
  41. ↑ Fletcher, Laurence (2021-06-22). "Hedge fund that bet against GameStop shuts down". Financial Times. Archived from the original on 2022-12-11. Retrieved 2021-07-12.
  42. ↑ Burton, Parmar, and Kumar, Katherine, Hema, and Nishant (July 9, 2021). "Steve Cohen's Bet on Melvin Leaves Point72 Trailing Hedge-Fund Peers". Bloomberg.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  43. ↑ Vedentam, Keerthi (16 June 2025). "Defense Tech Startup CX2 Nets $31M Series A". Los Angeles Business Journal.
  44. ↑ Zhen, Summer (16 January 2025). "Point72's new AI fund near $1.5 bln after double-digit returns, sources say". Reuters.
  45. 1 2 Kumar, Nishant (November 6, 2025). "Point72 Gears Up to Raise at Least $1 Billion for Private Credit". Bloomberg.
  46. ↑ "Point72 preps new equity unit as assets soar to $42 billion". www.pionline.com. November 3, 2025. Retrieved 2025-12-04.
  47. ↑ "13th FERI Hedge Fund Investor Day". thehedgefundjournal.com. Retrieved 2025-12-04.
  48. ↑ Saacks, Bradley. "Steve Cohen's Point72 is creating a new equities brand to get better access to the C-suite". Business Insider. Retrieved 2025-12-04.
  49. ↑ "Point72 launches new equity unit as AUM surges past $40bn - Hedgeweek". 2025-11-04. Retrieved 2025-12-04.
  50. ↑ Morrell, Alex. "Inside Steve Cohen's Cubist shake-up: How a quiet search and chance timing led to the surprising change at Point72". Business Insider. Retrieved 2025-12-04.
  51. ↑ Morrell, Alex. "Point72 quant head Denis Dancanet is out. WorldQuant's former CIO is taking over Cubist". Business Insider. Retrieved 2025-12-04.
  52. ↑ Zweben, Leslie Picker, Dawn Giel, Jen (2018-06-11). "The woman suing Point72 and Steve Cohen speaks out about alleged gender and pay discrimination". CNBC. Archived from the original on 2020-08-31. Retrieved 2020-09-03.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  53. ↑ Schott, Paul (2018-10-02). "Point72 gender-discrimination lawsuit moves to arbitration". StamfordAdvocate. Archived from the original on 2020-08-14. Retrieved 2020-09-03.
  54. ↑ Schott, Paul (2019-10-13). "Point72 discrimination case clouded by uncertainty". CTInsider.com. Archived from the original on 2019-11-02. Retrieved 2020-09-03.
  55. ↑ "Wigdor LLP Files Gender Discrimination Lawsuit Against Point72". Wigdor LLP. 2018-02-13. Retrieved 2020-09-03.
  56. ↑ Chung, Juliet (2020-09-17). "Steve Cohen's Point72 Settles With Female Employee in Gender Discrimination Arbitration". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Archived from the original on 2020-09-18. Retrieved 2020-09-18.
  57. ↑ Goldstein, Matthew (2020-09-18). "As Steve Cohen Closes In on Mets, Discrimination Claims Cast a Shadow". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 2020-09-19. Retrieved 2020-09-19.
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