Michael Pope helped launch Freestone Grove in early 2024. Two years later, he's walking out the door. The hedge fund no longer believes energy and natural resources offer enough profit potential. So it's scrapping its standalone energy team entirely.
The move comes despite the fund's solid 2025 return of 8.5%. But after losing money in the first quarter of 2026, Freestone Grove is shifting focus toward other sectors.
"Freestone Grove simply didn't see the same opportunity in energy that it saw in areas like technology, healthcare, and consumer stocks," according to a person with knowledge of the matter. Pope's departure means the firm will not replace him. His analysts will be split up and moved to other teams.
Even as the firm restructures, it has continued to accept new capital from certain investors.
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Freestone Grove isn't standing still. Founder Todd Barker is building up other areas. The firm hired Micah Nance, a former partner at Citadel, to head its technology, media, and telecoms sector. It also brought on Tsz Hin Kwok, another ex-Citadel analyst, as an event-driven portfolio manager - that means he will invest based on corporate events like mergers or spin-offs.
The industrials portfolio is now overseen by Jared Franken, who previously served as a managing director at Interval Partners. Inside the firm, Freestone Grove promoted Daniel Goldberg to cover consumer stocks and Charlie Witmer to cover healthcare stocks. These moves show the firm is betting on growth outside of energy.
The fund started with $3.5 billion at launch in early 2024. That's less than Jain Global, a competing hedge fund that raised $5.3 billion in its 2024 debut. Jain Global later returned some external capital. Freestone Grove currently has 105 investment staff, down from its energy team but still a sizable group.
Pope's departure marks a sharp pivot for Freestone Grove, which had positioned energy as a core growth engine at its inception. Industry trends have prompted many hedge funds to reassess commodity bets amid volatile prices and shifting political landscapes. Although the fund posted an 8.5% gain in 2025, first-quarter losses in 2026 forced a re-evaluation of which sectors could deliver the best risk-adjusted returns. The decision to dissolve the energy team reflects a broader move toward sectors like technology and healthcare that the firm now views as more promising.
Pope previously ran his own hedge fund, Wellfield Capital, before closing it to join Freestone Grove. He also worked at Citadel, the same firm where his replacements Nance and Kwok came from.
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