Financier Is Pulled Back Into Focus

Louis Moore Bacon, 53-year-old founder of Moore Capital, is among the most successful hedge-fund managers in history, and he has the 435-acre island to prove it.

The secretive hedge-fund manager's vehicle, Moore Capital, is in the news because it has placed one of its employees, London-based execution trader Julian Rifat, on administrative leave after Mr. Rifat's arrest for alleged insider trading. Moore said in a statement that it is cooperating with the investigation, and that it understands from the U.K. Financial Services Authority, which made the allegations, that the Rifat investigation doesn't involve any funds managed by Moore.

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Moore hedge-fund manager Louis Bacon and his wife, Gabrielle Sacconaghi, in London in 2007. A trader for a firm he founded has been ensnared in an insider-trading case, though no Moore funds are said to be involved.

Mr. Rifat couldn't immediately be reached for comment.

No hedge-fund manager came to represent the new Gilded Age as much as Mr. Bacon.

Using a "discretionary" trading style that favors intuition over numbers, he developed one of the world's great hedge-fund fortunes.

He has since recorded the largest personal property purchase in U.S. history and is known for stalking prey and for a fondness for polo and other sports.

Mr. Bacon started his financial career trading futures for Shearson Lehman Brothers.

He founded Moore in 1989 and has long been associated with some of the founders of the modern hedge-fund industry. His stepmother is the sister of Tiger Management founder Julian Robertson, who has since closed his hedge fund.

Like many hedge-fund managers, Mr. Bacon rarely speaks to the press and wouldn't comment for this article.

Mr. Bacon is one of 29 hedge-fund managers on Forbes's 2009 list of the 400 richest Americans; his wealth was placed by the magazine at $1.5 billion.

Moore now manages more than $14 billion in several hedge-fund strategies.

He is best-known for "global macro" investing, which is a style that allows wide flexibility in investments and often is driven by big-picture strategy rather than specific security selection. Mr. Bacon's $7.2 billion flagship Moore Global Investment Fund was slightly down in 2010 through Feb. 25, but has posted annualized returns of 21% since its inception in 1990.

When Mr. Bacon started Moore, most investors in his funds were wealthy individuals. Much of Moore's investor money during the past few years has come from institutions, according to people familiar with the firm.

Mr. Bacon has bought some notable properties. In addition to the 435-acre island he owns off the Long Island Sound, Mr. Bacon in 2007 bought the Forbes family's Colorado ranch for $175 million, thought to be the highest-priced U.S. residential property purchase ever in the U.S.

It is one of several properties he owns.

Some of Mr. Bacon's more notable non-portfolio expenditures include paying the rock band the Pretenders to play at his 50th birthday party and buying English polo player Jack Kidd's polo farm.

A Middlebury College graduate with an MBA from Columbia, Mr. Bacon married Gabrielle Sacconaghi, then 39, in 2007. He was married once before, and divorced.