Banished to the 'Burbs: The Trader’s Train to Wall Street, Conn.

Morning trains from Grand Central Terminal are crowded and the conversation is sparse
Thousands of young financial workers stream into Grand Central Terminal every weekday morning. But many are not on their way to offices on Wall Street or in Midtown. Instead, they are crowded into trains for Greenwich, Conn., which has emerged as the home of the ballooning hedge fund industry.

The center of power in finance has shifted in recent years, and in one sense that shift is geographical. Some of the most powerful traders in the market can be found miles away from Wall Street, in Greenwich, Stamford, and Westport, Conn.

“If you look up and down the train line in Connecticut you will see all the hedge funds concentrated right along the line,” said Thomas Torelli, a corporate real estate agent in Greenwich. Those funds are there because their founders and top managers live nearby. But thousands of their employees do not and as result do what to the rest of Wall Street is a reverse commute.

The trains leaving Grand Central between 7 and 8:30 a.m. are packed. Most seats are taken and conversation is sparse. Unlike Wall Street commuters, many are not wearing suits. Yet like the Wall Street crowd, some are working furiously on their BlackBerrys and laptops. A little less than an hour later, when the train rolls into Greenwich, workers stream out of the train and walk to their nearby offices.

“Greenwich is quiet, peaceful and clean,’’ said a young hedge fund employee on the train who lives in Manhattan. “But I am 24 and single — I couldn’t imagine living in Greenwich.” He spoke on the condition that he and his firm not be named because he was not authorized by the hedge fund to speak to reporters. Many other commuters declined to comment for the same reason.

Hedge funds are notoriously secretive organizations. They will not disclose who their employees or investors are, much less their strategies. Now, apparently, how their employees commute is off limits, as well. Still, it is clear that one of the most important factors for the thousands of hedge funds located in Connecticut is to be within walking distance of the train station, Mr. Torelli said.

“Hedge funds started to grow like weeds around here and drive the real estate market from the mid-1990’s till now,” he said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/04/business/04reverse.html?dlbk