He was hired as an analyst at about the same time Soros's European portfolio manager was struggling. Bessent, who had spent time analyzing European companies, was sent to London to help out two weeks before Soros fired the whole European team, leaving Bessent alone to manage a $300 million portfolio, about a third of the assets in Soros's main fund then, Bessent told Drobny. By the time he left Soros, he was overseeing about $1.5 billion, generating annualized returns of 26.5 percent.
At Soros, he was also the head of global research and co- head of external-manager selection.
Bessent left in June 2000 to start New York-based Bessent Capital. He raised $1 billion, including $150 million from Soros.
Bessent had been a macro trader at Soros, trying to profit from macroeconomic trends by wagering on stocks, bonds currencies and commodities. He decided to start a European stocks fund and a global equities fund because investors had lost faith in macro funds such as Soros's, he told Drobny.
After losing more than 10 percent in his European stock fund in the first half of 2001 and having investors pull money, Bessent decided to go back to macro investing. In 2005, he returned client capital and converted the firm into a family office.
In 2007, he became director of research and strategy at Protégé Partners, a New York-based fund of funds group. He left at the end of last year and was in the process of forming KeySquare Group LP, a macro fund, when he was recruited by Soros Fund Management. His fund was scheduled to start trading next month.