Representatives for ExodusPoint and Millennium declined to comment.
In Dorado, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) west of the capital San Juan, real estate prices have soared. The area is considered family-friendly, has high-end housing and is one of the few places with the infrastructure finance professionals need to tap into their employers’ computer networks on the mainland.
“There has been exceptional interest, in part because Dorado has access to fiber broadband,” said Jared Dubin, who recently set up Troluce Capital Advisors there to manage money for ExodusPoint. “The Dorado real estate market has been pretty wild.”
Millennium incorporated a San Juan-based company, MPG PR Management, on Nov. 23, according to records maintained by Puerto Rico’s Department of State. The subsidiary had four money managers working there at year-end, SEC records show.
In June, ExodusPoint incorporated its subsidiary in Dorado, where Lee, 52, now lives. He owns 50% of that entity, ExodusPoint Capital Management Puerto Rico, and shares ownership of the rest with Gelband through another affiliate, according to a regulatory filing.
Lee, whose Facebook page shows him seated at the controls of a private plane, has a commercial pilot rating and is certified to fly small jets, Federal Aviation Administration records show.
In September, ExodusPoint revised its SEC filings to say that Lee’s business trips on a plane he had recently purchased would be partially covered by the firm’s expense policy. It allows Lee and Gelband to seek reimbursement from ExodusPoint hedge funds for private flights, with repayment limited to the equivalent cost of first-class commercial airfare.
Millennium and ExodusPoint have a shared history—Lee and Gelband were top executives at Englander’s firm before leaving to form ExodusPoint—and a similar business model. Both allocate capital in their main hedge funds to independent teams of traders known as pods, some of which work in-house and others that organize themselves as separate money-management firms, such as Dubin did with Troluce.
Even before the pandemic, Millennium had set up dozens of remote offices, including outposts in Laguna Beach, California, and Sugar Land, Texas, for portfolio managers who didn’t want to live in New York. ExodusPoint adopted the practice as well.
More managers may soon be joining them in the Caribbean.
“If people are interested in drastic life changes in order to pay less tax, then I have one item on my list,” said Stewart Patton, a Belize-based attorney who helps U.S. expatriates optimize their tax situations. “Move to Puerto Rico.”
—With assistance from Katherine Burton and Alan Levin.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.