Greg Coffey’s departure from GLG Partners later this year may hurt the firm more than was previously expected. Three of the seven GLG hedge funds in the black this year are managed by Coffey, Financial News reports, including two of its three top performers this year.

Coffey’s Emerging Currency & Fixed Income Fund was up 21.6% in the first half while his Emerging Equity Fund returned 13.4%. Just two other GLG funds had returns above 10% in the first six months of the year.

Another Coffey fund, Emerging Markets Special Situations, rose 2.5% in the first half.

The news has not been all good for Coffey: His largest fund, the US$4.6 billion Emerging Markets Fund, is down 13.5%, making it the second-worst performer at the firm. GLG said that, if the Emerging Markets Fund’s performance is excluded, its hedge funds’ aggregate loss would have been 0.8%, rather than 2.4%.

Still, Coffey may be turning things around at Emerging Markets as he prepares to hand it over to his successor. The fund rose 5.1% in May as the manager unwound several positions.

“During May, we unwound a significant portion of the Emerging Markets Fund’s portfolio, and did so in the context of difficult market conditions and patchy liquidity,” he wrote to investors in June. “We were able to bring the current cash position of over US$2 billion, or just under 50% of net asset value, and we continue to make progress in this effort. We captured the majority of the returns through aggressive trading. We are now in a position of having cash balances approaching full coverage of impending redemptions.”

In addition to losing Coffey’s skills as a manager, GLG expects as much as US$4 billion in redemptions following his departure.

Coffey is set to start his own hedge fund in London. Former Morgan Stanley emerging markets fixed-income chiefs Bart Turtelboom and Karim Abdel-Motaal will take over three of Coffey’s funds, including Emerging Markets, while ex-Goldman Sachs partner Driss Ben-Brahim will run the Emerging Markets Special Situations Fund.