Ascend Capital, LLC is a hedge fund sponsor based out of San Francisco, California. The company was originally established in 1999 by founder Malcolm Paul Fairbairn who continues to have an active role in the company as its CIO. Ascend Capital conducts its research internally, investing in the public equity and hedging markets within the United States. The company describes itself as an “opportunistic U.S.-focused long/short equity strategy” and utilizes a fundamental methodology to make its investment decisions, allocating its assets across a variety of sectors. The firm’s investment philosophy is “to consistently achieve outstanding risk-adjusted performance through superior skill in security selection, capital allocation, and risk management.” Ascend Capital invests most heavily in the consumer discretionary and information technology sectors, which each make up over a quarter of its total asset allocations, and also invests in the health care, energy, finance, and materials sectors, among others to a lesser degree, in order of decreasing allocation. The company keeps its holdings for an average of only 1.5 quarters and has had a turnover rate of approximately 91.6% in the most recent quarter. Ascend Capital has grown from its inception to now operate with 36 employees of which 24 are investment professionals. The company oversees over $5.4 billion in total assets under management spread across 18 total accounts, all of which are discretionary accounts. Although its total number of accounts has been somewhat volatile in recent years, its total assets under management has been increasing, growing significantly from $1.5 billion back in 2010 to well over three times that amount today. Ascend Capital mainly caters to pooled investment vehicles, which alone makes up well over three quarters of its client base and approximately three quarters of its assets, and also provides services to investment companies and other clientele to a lesser degree.