Hedge Fund - Centaurus Advisors

Hedge fund manager John Arnold was born in 1974. He graduated from Vanderbilt University and went to work for the ill-fated Enron straight afterwards. Initially working the Crude Oil desk there, John Arnold eventually moved to the Natural Gas desk. When the company collapsed in 2002, John Arnold used his previous year's bonus, combined with his experience and talent for reading the notoriously fickle natural gas markets, to found Centaurus Advisors.

Centaurus Advisors operates in a unique niche. John Arnold explains: "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." Specifically, the fund concentrates its investments on natural-gas storage caverns and power plants, a strategy that some have likened to a mini-Enron. Centaurus Advisors is widely considered to be a major player in the energy markets.