Top 100 Hedge Fund List gets shaken up by Market Turmoil

Date: Thursday, December 15, 2011
Author: HedgeTracker

The latest Top 100 U.S. Equity Hedge Fund list has been released, revealing that the top 100 hedge funds have not had it easy recently. A number of large hedge fund industry stalwarts saw their assets drop precipitously. Leading the way was John Paulson’s Paulson & Co, which saw its US equity assets fall by $8.5 billion, bringing the firm’s rank down to #3. The firm had securely retained the #1 spot for the first half of 2011.

Turnover was high on both the top and the bottom of list, as 10% of the hedge funds from last quarter’s list were knocked out of the top 100. Some of the more notable hedge funds that fell from the top 100 include: Partner Fund Management, Sigma Capital Management, CR Intrinsic Investors and Perry Capital.

While many top hedge funds suffered, a number of hedge funds managers were able to weather the storm quite impressively. In fact, eight hedge funds saw their ranking increase by more than 30 spots. Among the big gainers was the value focused Baupost Group, the event-driven focused Empyrean Capital Partners, the multi-strategy shop HBK Investments, and the arbitrage focused Alphabet Management LLC.

Some larger European Hedge Fund firms apparently had large appetites for US equities over the third quarter, as Longview Partners Ltd, GAM Holding Ltd and Oxford Asset Management all saw their US equity assets jump by more than $1.4 billion over the quarter.

Overall, hedge fund firms that have employ Multi-Strategy accounted for more than 21% of the top 100 hedge fund list’s assets. Other major investment styles in the top 100 include Long/Short Equity, Quantitative/Arbitrage and Value focused investors.

The top 100 hedge fund rankings are compiled on a quarterly basis using hedge fund firms’ overall U.S. equity assets under management. Beyond AUM, the top 100 Hedge Funds list also provides: investment styles, locations and contact information for all of the top hedge funds. To view the Top 100 Hedge Fund list in its entirety, please click here.