Quick Facts
Biography
Pierre Andurand (born February 1977) is a French businessman and hedge fund manager, specialising in the oil market.
In 2008 Forbes Magazine placed him in its list of the top 20 highest-earning hedge-fund managers. Andurand's various funds have produced cumulative returns of between 900-1300% for investors since 2008. As of 2012, he is also the Chairman and majority shareholder of Glory Sports International, the parent company of the Glory World Series international kickboxing league.
Early life and education
Andurand was born in the French city of Aix en Provence. At eight years old, he moved with his family to the French island of Réunion, off the African coast. He spent six years there before returning to Aix en Provence. At the age of seventeen he moved to the city of Toulouse to attend the Institut National des Sciences Appliquées (National Institute of Applied Sciences) At INSA he achieved an Msc. in Applied Mathematics before moving to École des Hautes Études Commerciales de Paris (HEC School of Management in Paris), where he achieved an MSc. in International Finance. He also holds an MSc. in Mathematical and Theoretical Physics from the University of Oxford, and an MSc. in Astrophysics from Queen Mary University of London.
A keen swimmer in his youth, Andurand was a member of the French National Junior Swimming Team in 1993 and 1994.
Career
After graduation Andurand was recruited by Goldman Sachs to work as an oil trader for its commodities trading unit in Singapore.
After Goldman Sachs he joined Bank of America Singapore as a Principal in oil trading. He then joined Vitol in Singapore as a trading manager. Privately owned Vitol is the world's largest oil trading company, shipping in excess of 200 million tons of crude oil per year. Andurand then moved to London in 2004 and was made a partner. He was rumoured to be one of the most successful traders in the company, earning him a bonus payment of $20 million at the end of one particularly successful year's trading.
Bluegold Capital
In October 2007, Andurand co-founded the hedge-fund investment group BlueGold. He was the majority shareholder and Chief Investment Officer at BlueGold. The BlueGold Global Fund was then launched in February 2008 with $300 million assets under management. In June of that year, its returns were described by the New York Post as being of "eye-popping" and "monstrous" proportions. Its peak in Assets Under Management reached $2.4 billion. Performance was 210% in 2008, 55% in 2009, 13% in 2010, and -34% in 2011. BlueGold was closed in April 2012, returning close to 99% of its assets under management within a month, after the founders decided to go their separate ways.
Andurand Capital
In February 2013, Pierre Andurand launched a new hedge fund: Andurand Capital, which invests mostly in commodities including oil but also has a secondary focus on metals and other commodities. According to Bloomberg the fund managed in excess of $1bn in 2019.
In 2013, the Andurand Commodities Fund finished the year as one of the best performing commodities hedge funds with a 25% return. In 2014, it generated a 38% return net of all fees by correctly forecasting the sharp decline in crude oil prices.
In 2016 Andurand turned bullish on oil, amid a bear market that saw oil at a 12-year low of $30 a barrel. He returned 22% that year.
2020 Covid-19 pandemic and world oil price slump
In an interview with the Financial Times, Andurand said the Covid-19 had become his singular area of focus since early 2020, when he spent two weeks studying the early spread of the disease. Andurand claimed it was clear to him from February that the virus was going to spread to the rest of the world, that it was contagious, and that the potential death toll meant there was no other way than to enforce a lockdown. He positioned his two funds to bet against the oil price, in the belief that energy would be one of the hardest-hit sectors. As of May 2020 one of Andurand’s funds was up +148% for the year.
Glory World Series
A martial arts fan, Andurand turned to kickboxing as a means to keep fit while working as an oil trader.He formed Glory World Series after rival series K-1 ran into financial difficulties and refused Andurand's offer of a buy-out.
In September 2016 Glory Sports International announced a Series B financing round with Yao Capital, the investment firm founded by Chinese basketball star Yao Ming, acquiring a significant strategic stake in the company; Liberty Global also participated in the syndicate. Existing Glory shareholders, including TwinFocus Capital Partners of Boston, also participated in the financing round.
Marriage
In August 2011, Andurand married Evgenia Slusarenko, before they agreed to a divorce in 2016.
In July 2019 Andurand married Elena Sereda.