Quant hedge fund D.E. Shaw pays over $1m per head in one of its entities
Hedge fund D.E. Shaw has been on a hot streak for the past two years with its two flagship funds, Composite and Oculus, posting double-digit returns in both 2024 and 2025. Recently released accounts for the fund in the UK show it compensating its staff well for their performance.
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Accounts for 'D.E SHAW & CO (UK), LLP' released yesterday for the year ending March 2025 show that the fund paid 78 staff an average of £801k ($1.08m). This is up from £697k per head paid in to 76 employees the previous year. D.E Shaw also has another UK entity, 'D.E. SHAW & CO (London), LLP', that has an identical number of employees and pays an identical amount. It's most likely that this is the same pay represented twice.
The accounts said that £20.9m of compensation this year (£268k per head) was deferred, but that staff also received £19.7m in compensation deferred from previous years. Factoring this in, the cash payout to staff this year is roughly £786k ($1.06m). DE Shaw has previously been accused of withholding deferred compensation for staff until they sign a second contract that absolves D.E. Shaw of any legal liability for events that occurred while they work there and for three years after that.
The hedge fund's UK team is seemingly one of its low performers. It's unclear whether there's any crossover in the revenues of the two entities, but profit across both of them fell 57% year-on-year for the period ending March 2025.
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