John D. Arnold: Centaurus Advisers, LLC

John D. Arnold founded Centaurus with his previous year’s bonus when Enron collapsed in 2002. His company currently has over $3 billion in assets under management. His employees include several well known energy traders including ex-Enron CEO Greg Whalley, Bill Perkins, Jeffrey Welch and Conrad Goerl, previously of MotherRock.

According to John D. Arnold, “After Enron collapsed, there was a general revaluation of credit risk among energy companies. The better credits were less willing to take on the lesser credits as counter parties. So the lesser credits found themselves with fewer counter parties willing to trade with them, even though they still needed to hedge the pricing risks in their business. Hedge funds previously had not been involved in the over-the-counter market, except for the very largest, because the other participants were reluctant to grant credit to that type of entity.”

During Amaranth Advisors’ collapse, Centaurus was widely considered as one of the major players on the other side of their position, and returning as much as 150% in 2005.

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