Hedge Funds
Jain Global Equities Head Townie Wells Leaves to Start Long/Short Fund, With Millennium Backing in Talks
The former Citadel trader, whose unit made about $750m in 2025, plans to raise outside capital alongside a possible multibillion-dollar Millennium allocation.
HedgeWeekly Hedge Fund Desk ·
Townie Wells, who ran fundamental equities at multistrategy manager Jain Global, left the firm last week to launch his own long/short equity hedge fund in New York, Hedgeweek reported on Monday. Wells, a former Citadel trader, plans to take in outside investors alongside a potential cornerstone commitment from Millennium Management.
Hedgeweek, citing a Bloomberg report, said Millennium is in discussions with Wells about a multibillion-dollar allocation. Jain Global's equities business earned roughly $750m of trading profit in 2025, and Wells was among its most productive portfolio managers. Founder Bobby Jain stepped in to help oversee the equities strategy in the second quarter of 2026. Hedgeweek said Wells had explored going independent three years ago and held talks with Millennium at that time too.
The departure follows Jain Global's April decision, reported by Reuters, to return investor money and run capital only for Millennium; Hedgeweek says that arrangement began in September. Jain launched the firm in 2024 with $5.3bn of commitments after leaving Millennium, where he was co-chief investment officer.
For allocators, the move shows how start-up launches are increasingly built on a single anchor. Goldman Sachs research cited by Hedgeweek found about half of 2025 launches received initial backing through separately managed accounts, against 16% a decade earlier, and for those funds such accounts made up 84% of starting assets. Hedge Fund Research counts about 3,200 launches since 2020 against more than 3,100 closures, so dependence on one large platform cuts both ways for new managers.