Echo Street Capital Management LLC is one of the top performing hedge funds, consistently outperforming average hedge fund portfolios and S&P 500 benchmarks. The $2.94 billion fund is presently helmed by trading genius Greg Poole. As per the latest 13-F filings, the fund has made some intriguing portfolio moves in the burgeoning payments industry. Poole hiked his positions in three big payment stocks Mastercard Inc. (NYSE: MA), Visa Inc. (NYSE: V), as well as Paychex, Inc. (NASDAQ: PAYX).

According to TipRanks, five-star hedge fund manager Greg Poole of Echo Street is ranked #16 out of 203 hedge funds, having achieved a staggering 84.8% portfolio gain since June of 2013 and a 3.37 sharpe ratio. Poole’s portfolio yields an average return of 19.22%.

Poole is a former Goldman Sachs Asset Management Portfolio manager. He joined Goldman Sachs as a real estate securities analyst in 1998 and became portfolio manager in 2000. His previous experience includes investment analysis and financial structuring for the Real Estate Principal Investment Group of the Investment Banking Division of Goldman, Sachs & Co. which he joined in 1996. Mr. Poole received his B.A. in Honors Economics from the University of Western Ontario in 1996.

New York City-based Echo Street Capital Management LLC was founded on February 27, 2002, and is an employee owned investment manager. It employs a combination of fundamental, charting analysis, cyclical, and quantitative analysis to make its investments. It typically invests in value stocks of companies. Greg Poole is the majority owner of the firm and has been in this role with the firm since 2002.

Echo Street employs event-driven, special situations, and traditional long/short strategies, and has a penchant for the real estate sector. The firm primarily provides its services to pooled investment vehicles. It also caters to charitable institutions. The firm manages client focused equity portfolios. It also manages hedge funds for its clients. The firm invests in the public equity markets.