Asian hedge fund assets hit USD134billion

Date: Friday, June 24, 2011
Author: Weekly Asia News

Despite market volatility and aggressive selling of China equities in May, which saw Shanghai’s CSI 300 Index fall 6.5 per cent, Asia ex-Japan hedge funds actually did well in attracting new assets. The latest report by Singapore hedge fund data provider, Eurekahedge, shows that USD1.6billion in net inflows were recorded for May, bringing total AUM in the region to USD134.3billion. Whilst the level of allocation is encouraging, it isn’t keeping pace with the number of new fund launches and as a result the firm has downgraded its year-end AUM forecast from USD180billion to USD150billion. As is symptomatic of Asia, the majority of launches continue to be small in relation to Europe and the US: the average fund size last year was USD10 to USD12million. Japan welcomed USD200million in net inflows, helping its total AUM reach USD16billion in May. Nowhere near its 2006 high-water mark of USD39billion but there are signs that its alternatives industry is recovering post-crisis (pre-crisis AUM was USD22.6billion). New inflows into Japan suggest that investors are satisfied its markets have stabilized despite the catastrophic events of March. Japan hedge funds, YTD, are up 0.66 per cent. They returned 8.09 per cent in 2010.