Would you like to work for Sam Wisnia? If so, he may yet be in a position to hire you again. Eisler Capital’s deputy chief investment officer (CIO) is understood to be looking into starting his own fund.
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Wisnia didn’t respond to a request to comment for this article and Eisler declined to comment. However, it’s understood that investors have approached him offering capital for his own hedge fund.
Wisnia joined Eisler in 2018 after previously working for Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs. Wisnia was a partner at Goldman, where he was mentored by Armen Avanessians, who founded Goldman’s strats team. At Eisler, he managed a team of over 100 quantitative strategists, many of whom are extremely loyal to him and have worked with him since his Goldman Sachs days.
Speaking on a podcast last year, Wisnia said he was essentially running Eisler alongside the founder, Edward Eisler, who was also a former partner at Goldman Sachs.
Wisnia is a colourful character known for wearing a yellow beany hat and having long ear hair. While his army of strats and his friends love him, some people are less enamoured. Portfolio managers who exited Eisler in recent years often disagreed with him on strategy and risk limits. Speaking on the same podcast, which has since been taken down, Wisnia said working for Eisler wasn’t for everyone. “We are definitely not a culture where people are left alone,” he explained. “If your culture is just hiring PMS and leaving them alone, that’s a perfectly valid culture, but it’s just very different to our culture.”
Wisnia’s efforts are seen as a possible explanation for Eisler Capital’s efforts to lock people in until March 2026, by which time his new fund might be ready. In the meantime, insiders say they’re still puzzled why Eisler Capital closed. “They could easily have managed costs and reduced headcount,” said one.
In the letter announcing its planned closure, Eisler Capital said it had become too difficult to hire strong portfolio managers on pay packages that make sense. Eisler made a 1.7% loss in 2025 through to August. However, the firm also noted that it delivered ‘a compounded net annual return of 7% with a Sharpe of 1.7, without a single twelve-month period of negative performance.
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