Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates, has sold his remaining shares in the firm and stepped down from the board, completing his multi-year transition from the hedge fund he founded.
According to a report by CNBC, Bridgewater completed the final sale of Dalio’s equity shares, wrapping up his management transition started in 2022. The report noted the billionaire has been selling his equity for years and that co-chief investment officers Bob Prince and Greg Jensen are two significant equity holders.
“We share our congratulations to Ray — he will always be our cherished founder, is a mentor to many, and remains a longstanding client with significant investments in Bridgewater’s strategies,” said the firm’s chief executive officer Nir Bar Dea and co-chair Mike McGavick in a July 21 letter to clients, CNBC reported. “Ray has always described the transition as a ‘dream come true’ and we’re excited to have made it a reality together.”
Dalio served as Bridgewater’s chief executive officer until 2017. He sits on the investment organization’s board and was its chairman until 2021. In a LinkedIn post, Dalio seemingly confirmed the news of his transition out of the company.
“I have been asked a lot about how I feel about passing along Bridgewater after having started and built it over the last 50 years,” he said. “I am thrilled about it! I feel that it has been an amazingly wonderful journey that I vividly remember practically every moment of, starting from my creating Bridgewater out of a two-bedroom apartment with a guy I played rugby with, to building it into the largest hedge fund in the world with a great team that grew to about 1,500 people, to making more money for our clients than any other hedge fund — and now, as of July 1, to completing the last step of passing it along to the next generation of great people I really believe have what it takes to make the firm very successful over the next 50 years. What a journey! What joy!”
He likened seeing Bridgewater alive and well without him to watching his kids being strong and healthy without him. He also praised the younger generation taking the reins of the company.
“What I see is a strong 50-year old Bridgewater that was started and run by a 26-year-old guy and is now being run by people who are mostly 25 to 50 years younger than him, with the people who built the firm with him as its leaders — most importantly Bob Prince, Greg Jensen, Karen Karniol-Tambour, and Nir Bar Dea, who are going through their own life cycles in a similarly beautiful way. I see these vital people continuing to modernize Bridgewater, guided by both the same highly effective 50-year-old principles that took it from nothing to quite something and new traditions developed by the next generation.”
