Anchor Bolt Capital founderRobert Polakalways wanted to work in money management. His father ran an investment firm, and as an economics undergrad at his hometown’s University of California, Los Angeles, he headed the investors’ club in his senior year. Today, Polak, 39, is making his own name in the industry. He started out as an investment banker at Salomon Brothers before earning his MBA at Columbia Business School. While at Columbia he worked for Morgan Stanley Investment Management, but after graduation he decided he’d prefer a job in the more entrepreneurial hedge fund industry. Polak was working as a portfolio manager, specializing in industrials, for New York hedge fund firm Copper Arch Capital in 2005 when Kenneth Griffin’s now $14 billion, Chicago-based Citadel recruited him for the newly created role of industrials sector head. Polak stayed at Citadel for five years. In 2012 he launched Chicago’s Anchor Bolt, a long-short equity firm focused on industrials and energy stocks. He already manages about $200 million without the benefit of any seed capital. |
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