Goldman buys hedge fund stake

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said Monday that a fund it oversees bought a 10% stake in Winton Capital Management, a London-based hedge fund manager with $10 billion of assets under management.

The fund, which bought the stake in July, is a new private investment portfolio set up to buy stakes in hedge fund management firms.

The transaction doesn’t give Goldman or the fund any rights to get involved in investment management or seats on the company’s board, the company said, declining to give further details of the purchase.

Hedge funds are mostly private and unregulated pools of capital whose managers can buy or sell any assets and typically take a substantial portion of the investment profit in payment.

Winton uses computer modeling to make investments. Its Winton Futures Fund Ltd. gained 7% in September, contributing to a 20% return in the last 12 months, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.