Portrait: Andrew J. Hall hits jackpot in oil as commodity boom roars on, now manages money for Blackstone and Phibro

From the WSJ: The commodities market's historic surge is generating huge paydays on Wall Street. One of the biggest beneficiaries has been Andrew J. Hall, an enigmatic British-born trader who, five years ago, anticipated an important shift in the way the world valued oil -- and bet big.

Over the past five years, Mr. Hall's compensation has totaled well over a quarter-billion dollars, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of securities filings and Mr. Hall's compensation structure. One of those years he out-earned his boss, the head of Citigroup Inc., about five times over. Last year, an unusually rough one for Citigroup, Mr. Hall's secretive trading unit, Phibro, generated close to 10% of the bank's total net income. Mr. Hall's power at Citigroup is the result of his winning bets on oil and natural gas, part of a broader commodities boom that has swept the world this decade.

… Mr. Hall's bet -- that long-term and short-term energy prices would soon abandon their historical relationship with one another -- looked like a long shot when he made it. In making it, Mr. Hall individually took on more risk than Citigroup typically permits some groups of traders to carry, according to a person familiar with the bank.

Now, after 15 straight profitable years, Mr. Hall has considered breaking out on his own. Last year, for the first time, he began managing outside money for clients including investment giant Blackstone Group and others. Officials at Citigroup say they are "committed" to Mr. Hall and to Phibro, a once-legendary but now nearly forgotten commodities firm that Citigroup inherited a decade ago…

Late last year, Citigroup told Phibro executives that it was interested in broadening the unit's scope by merging it into Citigroup's asset-management arm. That would effectively turn Phibro into a hedge fund, managing money for clients but much less of Citigroup's own capital. The 57-year-old trader balked. Mr. Hall called the idea "a complete nonstarter," according to a person familiar with the exchange