Quant trader doubles fortune to $11 billion as XTX profit surges

A former Deutsche Bank AG trader is rapidly amassing enough wealth in the fallout from volatile interest rates and inflation to rival some of the richest billionaires in finance.

Alex Gerko’s fortune has surged to $10.8 billion after the holding company of his quantitative trading firm XTX Markets paid out a record £1.6 billion ($2 billion) dividend to its owners this year. XTX also increased profits more than 50%, helping to roughly double the 43-year-old’s net worth, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Gerko, who controls a majority stake in XTX, is now the world’s 182nd-richest person, with his fortune rivaling those of hedge fund founders Izzy Englander and Stan Druckenmiller.

Tim Moxon, a spokesperson for London-based XTX, declined to comment on Gerko’s net worth.

Gerko’s swift ascent among the world’s ultra-rich positions him as an increasingly influential figure in markets. XTX handles almost $300 billion in daily volume across equities, commodities, currency and fixed-income markets. His booming fortune has already earned him the title of the UK’s biggest taxpayer and helped him fund donations to educational initiatives worldwide.

XTX’s three main UK operating entities reported combined profits of about £1.1 billion in 2022 as revenue surged 70% to £2.5 billion, registry filings show. Rival market-making firm Citadel Securities booked $7.5 billion in net trading revenue in the same period, up 7.1% from 2021. 

The haul allowed XTX to pay out most of its record dividend in April to a Cayman Islands-based entity that Gerko controls. The Russian native is a British citizen and UK tax resident.

Gerko began his career trading equities at Deutsche Bank before shifting to foreign exchange. He left in 2009 to join the hedge fund GSA Capital, where he led currency trading operations before XTX was spun out in early 2015.

The firm Gerko built takes its name from a mathematical formula used in its trading algorithms and seeks to automate as many processes as possible while using statistical models that analyze “trillions of noisy observations.” 

Gerko is co-CEO of XTX alongside former JPMorgan Chase & Co. executive Hans Buehler, who joined the firm last year, while Deutsche Bank veteran Zar Amrolia is chairman.