James Simons, a revered figure in the hedge fund industry, has told investors he will give up day-to-day management duties and become non-executive chairman of Renaissance Technologies. He will participate in big corporate decisions, he says.

Peter Brown and Robert Mercer will become co-chief executives, the New York Times reports. All this comes amid some highly publicized performance problems with the firm's largest fund, the Renaissance Institutional Equities Fund. It has declined more than 80 percent this year amid a rush to the exits by limited partners.  The older Medallion fund, however, has kept up its winning ways. It's up 80 percent from last year and has never posted a losing year since it was started in 1988. Simons was a quantitative pioneer. He was among the first to eschew MBAs for Physics PhDs and the like. 

For more:
- here's the article

Related Articles:
James Simons' RIEF problems
James Simons on the defensive
The hedge fund hall of fame