Top 200 New York Area equity hedge funds surpass $670 billion in assets

Date: Monday, November 18, 2013
Author: HedgeTracker

The Top 200 NY Metro Area Equity Hedge Funds recorded another strong quarter with assets growing by $16 billion or 2.5% to $670 billion. The growth was driven by strong performance at the top with 10 of the top 15 funds seeing an increase in assets over the quarter.

Three of the top 5 saw significant growth over the quarter with DE Shaw & Co increasing 10%, AQR Capital Management LLC growing 11% and Icahn Associates jumping nearly 27%. Renaissance Technologies Corporation retained the top spot on this quarter’s list but lost more than $3 billion in equity assets, falling to $38.1 billion.

The top 200 list was not without turnover during the quarter as 15 new funds made it onto the list. The biggest jump for a new entrant belongs to Energy Income Partners, which managed to break into the top 50, landing at number 45 with almost $4 billion in equity assets. Energy Income Partners is an energy-focused hedge fund that has 78% of its assets invested in energy infrastructure such as pipelines, storage and terminals. Alphabet Management LLC was the only other new addition that successful jumped into the top 100. Alphabet is a global, relative value volatility arbitrage hedge fund manager based in New York and founded in 2007 by Jason Adler along with the core of what was Geronimo, LLC, a proprietary floor trading group.

SAB Capital Management suffered the biggest drop of the quarter, falling off the list after previously holding spot 124. SAB is a long/short event-driven hedge fund run by Brian Jackelow. 4 additional previously top 150 funds dropped from the list: BTG Pactual Global Asset Management, 40 North Industries LLC, Capstone Investment Advisors and Nine Chapters Capital Management LLC.

The vast majority of New York Metro Area assets still reside in NYC, with NYC-based funds accounting for 76% of top 200’s assets. Greenwich, CT still holds a meaningful presence with 12% of assets.