At 76, Wall Street sage Wien joins Blackstone

BOSTON (Reuters) - At an age when most people are enjoying retirement, leading Wall Street strategist Byron Wien, 76, has just taken a new job at Blackstone Advisory Services.

Wien will become a Vice Chairman at the private equity and hedge fund firm, Blackstone Group LP BX.N chairman and chief executive Steven Schwarzman said on Wednesday.

“Byron will play a central and invaluable role in providing direction and guidance,” Schwarzman said in a statement.

In a long career, Wien has analyzed markets at some of Wall Street’s most powerful -- and best paying -- firms, so he may not be in need of extra retirement cash.

He established his reputation during two decades at Morgan Stanley where he rose to become the company’s chief investment strategist for the United States.

During that time, he produced an influential annual list of 10 market surprises, which drew industry-wide attention.

“My wife hopes I give this up as soon as possible,” Wien told the New York Times about writing his annual list. “While people are enjoying the holidays, between Thanksgiving and Christmas I am in a total panic, working quite hard on developing these,” he told the newspaper in 2001.

Wien found his new job only a few months after his previous employer, hedge fund firm Pequot Capital Management, went out of business. Wien joined Pequot in 2005.

His time at Pequot, a firm that once invested $15 billion and ranked among Wall Street’s most profitable partnerships, came to an abrupt end in May.

Pequot’s founder, Arthur Samberg, surprised employees and investors with news he was shutting down after the government reopened its insider trading investigation into the firm.

“I will never believe he has done anything wrong,” Wien wrote in a letter about Samberg in July.

“It’s too bad that Art’s dream of a firm that continued after him was not realized because it was the right dream and he was the right guy to make it happen. That is the real tragedy of what has taken place.”