Hedge fund Samlyn liquidated all its holdings except financial stocks and laid off senior analysts, shifting its focus to the global financial sector.

Samlyn Capital, founded by Rob Pohly, is cutting senior analysts and shifting to a focus on the global financial sector after selling holdings in almost every industry except global financial stocks, according to people familiar with the matter. The US$7 billion long-short equity hedge fund offloaded stocks in sectors including industrials, technology and retail weeks ago, ahead of a recent market selloff that has hurt the hedge fund industry broadly. The fund is down about 5 per cent this year to October, according to one of the people familiar with its performance. Going forward Samlyn will mostly trade global financial stocks a sector Pohly has focused on for decades, and where the fund's analysts have been retained. Pohly founded Samlyn in 2007 and is its sole portfolio manager. He previously worked at Julian Robertson's Tiger Management before joining Sigma, an affiliate of Steve Cohen's then-hedge fund SAC Capital. Rather than returning capital to investors, Samlyn has reinvested the proceeds of its sales into financial stocks, or held the cash for later deployment.