Farallon Capital

Farallon Capital Management, L.L.C. is an American multi-strategy hedge fund headquartered in San Francisco, California. Founded by Tom Steyer in 1986, the firm employs approximately 230 professionals in eight countries around the world. Farallon primarily manages capital for university endowments, foundations, and high-net-worth individuals. The company manages assets reportedly worth $39 billion. History Farallon was founded by Tom Steyer in January 1986 with $15 million in seed capital. Before starting Farallon, Steyer had worked for San Francisco-based private equity firm Hellman & Friedman, as a risk arbitrage trader under Robert Rubin at Goldman Sachs, and in Morgan Stanley's corporate mergers and acquisitions department. Farallon was one of the first hedge funds to raise money from a university endowment. In 1987, Steyer, who received his bachelor's degree from Yale, approached the university's endowment to allocate funds for Farallon to manage. The Yale endowment declined based on the fees charged by Farallon. David Swensen, Yale's chief investment officer, later arranged with Tom Steyer that Farallon would initially manage an allocation of the Yale endowment for no fee. After Yale's investment proved to be lucrative, many other college endowments and pensions began to invest in hedge funds.