U.S. hedge fund heavyweight D. E. Shaw is opening two offices in India, the company said on Tuesday, joining rivals Millennium and AQR Capital Management which are also expanding in the country.
D.E. Shaw, which manages more than $60 billion, is opening offices in the cities of Bengaluru and Gurugram, adding over 300 employees in total, Eddie Fishman, a member of D. E. Shaw's executive committee, said in a statement.
"India has been tapped for talent for a while, but it has only accelerated post-COVID," said Steve Menna, a national leader for the hedge fund industry at KPMG. He said the trend accelerated as working remotely took off.
In addition to the 300 roles hired for the two new offices, D. E. Shaw currently has roughly 80 job positions open at D. E. Shaw India, according to its website, in areas including research, technology, finance, human resources and compliance.
The firm has been in the country since 1996, when it opened a technological development center in Hyderabad. D. E. Shaw India now employs nearly 1,500 people, which makes India its biggest country by number of employees.
Among other funds, Israel Englander's Millennium opened an office in Bengaluru last year to hire in areas such as technology and operations and it has about 30 job positions listed in India. The firm is building its presence in Mumbai too, according to a source familiar with the matter.
AQR, which has had an office in Bengaluru since 2018, is expanding its business there with 12 roles open for quantitative researchers and software engineers.
"We continue to strategically hire and invest in the office with the addition of both experienced and campus hires across departments," Jen Frost, AQR's chief human resources officer, said in an email.
Versor Investments, a New York-based quantitative firm managing $1.8 billion, has five positions open in India for engineers and quantitative developers and researchers, according to its website. The firm declined to comment on its strategy.
