By Svea Herbst-Bayliss

BOSTON (Reuters), – Galaxy Digital Holdings Ltd., a crypto-oriented finance services company, announced Thursday that it had hired an executive from Blackstone Group (NYSE 🙂 in order to grow and expand its product offering.

William Burt is a former Blackstone managing director. He joined Galaxy Digital this week as the chief operating officer for Galaxy Digital Asset Management. The company oversees approximately $2.9 billion of assets.

Burt served as chief operating officer at Blackstone’s $55 Billion Portfolio Solutions group. This group invests in many of the top hedge fund managers around the globe for clients such as pension funds and sovereign wealth funds.

Burt spent a decade working for Blackstone’s hedge-fund unit BAAM. He was responsible for helping clients and allocating investment funds. Before Blackstone, he worked at McKinsey & Company.

Burt, who will be working at Galaxy Digital Asset Management as the Global Head for Asset Management, will manage day-to-day assets management operations and report directly to Steve Kurz.

Kurz declared that Bill’s years of investment management business scaling will be invaluable in helping us to expand rapidly our capabilities.

Galaxy Digital, a former hedge fund manager and cryptocurrency pioneer Michael Novogratz founded it in 2018 as an investment firm. It then expanded to trading and investment banking for institutional clients and wealthy individuals.

New York-based firm, listed its shares in Toronto in 2020. It is anticipated to list in America in the first quarter 2022.

Galaxy Digital hired a variety of financial professionals, such as Michael Daffey, an ex-executive at Goldman Sachs (NYSE :).

Blackstone saw a number of its executives depart from the hedge fund unit in the last year. These included John McCormick (NYSE :), BAAM’s former head, and Min Htoo (BAAM’s ex-co-chief investment officer). In paragraph 7, this story incorrectly states that Galaxy Digital was created in 2018.