William Alexander von Mueffling[1] is an investor, hedge fund manager, and producer. He is the president of Cantillon Capital Management, an investment firm with more than $14 billion under management.[2]
Early life and education
Mueffling was born in Munich to a German investment-banker father, William Freiherr von Mueffling, and an American mother, Marsha Millard, who met as students at Columbia University.[3][4][5] His paternal family is descended from German nobility, and his maternal grandfather, Mark Millard, was a senior managing director and a member of the board of directors of Shearson/American Express. His father died when he was a toddler, and his mother moved William and his siblings to New York. He attended The Hotchkiss School in Lakeville, Connecticut.[6] He then attended Columbia University, earning his B.A. in 1990 and M.B.A. from Columbia Business School in 1995.[7]
Career
Von Mueffling worked for Deutsche Bank in France before joining Lazard, where he became a managing director at Lazard Asset Management and gained fame as an investor in his early 30s by shorting technology stocks, posting average annual returns of more than 30% from 1998 to 2003. He was called a "Wunderkind" by Forbes and "alpha male" by the Economist for his stellar performance.[8][9]
After a dispute with Lazard's chief executive Bruce Wasserstein over compensation,[10][11] he left in 2003 to start his own hedge fund, Cantillon Capital Management.[12] As a result of his departure, Lazard's hedge fund business suffered a devastating loss of $3 billion, as many of its investors followed von Mueffling to the new firm.[13]
Mueffling closed his hedge fund in 2009 and returned $3.5 billion to investors, and switched to a long-only strategy by retaining $1 billion in long-only assets.[7][18] His investment firm has an AUM of nearly $15 billion, as of September 2021.[19]
Mueffling serves as an advisor to the litigation funding startup Legalist.[25][26]
Personal life and family
Von Mueffling is married to Clémence von Mueffling, an author and beauty expert whose mother,[27] Lorraine Bolloré, and grandmother, Régine Debrise, were both beauty editors of Vogue Paris.[28][29] She is a relative of French businessman Vincent Bolloré, CEO of the eponymous conglomerate Bolloré SE.[30] He maintains a residence at 810 Fifth Avenue.[31]