One of the world’s most prominent hedge funds is sitting on a $500m profit after making a bet that Greece would not be forced to leave the eurozone, bucking the trend in a difficult year for the industry.

Third Point, headed by the billionaire US investor Dan Loeb, tendered the majority of a $1bn position in Greek government bonds, built up only months earlier, as part of a landmark debt buyback deal by Athens on Monday, according to people familiar with the firm.

The windfall marks out the New York-based firm as one of the few hedge fund managers to have profited from the eurozone crisis. Standard & Poor’s, the rating agency, raised its assessment of Greece’s sovereign debt by several notches yesterday, citing the eurozone’s “strong determination” to keep the country inside the common currency area.