MICHAEL HINTZE

Hintze was born in China to Russian-German parents, raised in Australia, and ended up conquering London's hedge fund scene. His path was anything but conventional.

He served as an officer in the Royal Australian Army, which gave him the discipline and pressure tolerance that would later define his trading career.

After the army, he got an MBA at Harvard Business School. From there, he went straight to Goldman Sachs in New York, where he worked in convertible bonds and credit trading.

He was good — good enough that Credit Suisse poached him to run their global credit business in the mid-1990s.

In 1999, he founded CQS (which stands for his initials — C Q S, or Convertible, Quantitative, and Strategy). He launched it with a focus on credit and convertible bond trading.

The fund grew steadily, managing $25 billion at its peak. CQS became known as one of the most sophisticated credit-focused hedge funds in the world.

The 2008 crisis hit CQS hard — the fund lost significant money when credit markets froze. But Hintze survived and rebuilt.

The fact that he's still running CQS over 25 years after founding it tells you everything about his resilience.

CQS is the centerpiece — a London-based multi-strategy hedge fund that Hintze has run since 1999. At its peak, the firm managed $25 billion across credit, convertibles, asset-backed securities, and multi-strategy funds.

It employs over 300 people across London, New York, Hong Kong, and other offices.

Before CQS, he held senior roles at Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse First Boston. At CSFB, he ran the global convertible bond business, which was one of the most profitable desks on the street in the late 1990s.

He also sits on multiple boards and advisory committees in the financial world. He's been a significant donor to the Conservative Party in the UK, which has made him a politically connected figure in British finance.

Hintze is a credit specialist at heart. While most famous hedge fund managers trade stocks, Hintze trades debt — corporate bonds, convertible bonds, asset-backed securities, distressed credit.

His edge is understanding the fine print of credit agreements better than almost anyone.

His approach is fundamentally analytical. He uses quantitative models to identify mispricings in credit markets, then takes positions that profit when the market corrects.

Think of it like finding a house that's underpriced because the realtor made a math error — except the house is a $500 million bond issue.

He also runs multi-strategy portfolios, meaning CQS doesn't just do one thing. They trade credit, convertibles, equities, and structured products.

This diversification is deliberate — when one strategy is losing money, another should be making it.

The 2020 COVID crash was actually a great period for CQS's credit strategies. When corporate bond markets panicked in March 2020, Hintze loaded up on investment-grade and high-yield bonds at distressed prices.

When the Fed stepped in with unprecedented bond-buying programs, those positions snapped back hard. CQS reportedly made several hundred million dollars in the space of a few months.

His earlier career wins include building the convertible bond franchise at CSFB into one of the most profitable desks on Wall Street, generating hundreds of millions in annual revenue. That track record is what gave him the credibility to launch CQS with serious institutional backing from day one.

The 2008 financial crisis was Hintze's worst period. CQS's flagship fund lost approximately 40% as credit markets seized up completely.

Positions that were theoretically hedged became correlated — everything went down together, and the hedges didn't work as modeled.

He also faced significant investor redemptions, which forced him to sell positions at the worst possible time. The fund shrank from its peak substantially.

It took years to rebuild both the performance track record and investor trust. The experience fundamentally changed how he thinks about portfolio construction and liquidity management.

Hintze believes credit markets are the backbone of the global economy and the most inefficient major asset class. His core insight: equity investors get all the attention, but debt investors control whether companies live or die.

The bondholder has power that the stockholder doesn't.

He's also a strong believer in discipline over brilliance. He's said repeatedly that the difference between a good trader and a great one isn't intelligence — it's the ability to follow your process when everything around you is chaos.

The army taught him that.

Transparency matters to him more than most hedge fund managers admit. CQS has been relatively open about its strategies and processes, which is unusual in the secretive world of credit hedge funds.

Hintze is married to Dorothy Hintze, who shares his passion for art and philanthropy. They are prominent figures in London's cultural and charitable scene.

He was knighted as Sir Michael Hintze AM in 2013 for services to the arts and philanthropy.

He has children but keeps them out of public life. His family life revolves heavily around London's art world and Catholic community — he's a Knight Commander of the Order of St.

Gregory the Great, one of the highest honors the Pope can bestow on a layperson.

Hintze has a unique educational background. He holds an engineering degree from the University of Sydney, then served as an officer in the Royal Australian Army before pivoting to business.

He earned his MBA from Harvard Business School in the mid-1980s. The combination of engineering, military, and business training is unusual on Wall Street — but it produced a trader who thinks in systems, stays calm under fire, and understands risk mathematically.

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