Pensions&Investments is out with some very interesting research regarding the world's largest hedge funds as of the end of 2009. They've tallied up the assets under management totals for all the various firms and have ranked them accordingly. Many of the firms below we've followed in our hedge fund portfolio tracking series and it's astonishing how much capital they control these days.
Without further ado, here are the World's Largest Hedge Funds (in billions). Click the links below to be taken to our coverage of each respective hedge fund:
- J.P. Morgan $53.5
- Bridgewater Associates $43.6
- Paulson & Co. $32.0
- Brevan Howard $27.0
- Soros Fund Mgmt. $27.0
- Man Group $25.3
- Och-Ziff Capital Mgmt. Group $23.1
- D.E. Shaw Group* $23.0
- BlackRock (BGI) $21.0
- Farallon Capital Mgmt. $20.7
- Baupost Group** $20.0
- Goldman Sachs Asset Mgmt. $17.8
- BlueCrest Capital Mgmt. $17.3
- Canyon Partners $17.0
- Landsdowne Partners* $15.0
- Renaissance Technologies $15.0
- Fortress Investment Group $13.8
- Moore Capital Mgmt. $12.4
- Viking Global Investors* $12.4
- Citadel Investment Group $12.2
- SAC Capital Partners $12.0
- GLG Partners $11.5
- Tudor Investment Corp $10.0
Total $482.6
* as of Jan 1st, 2010
** as of Sept 30th, 2009
To see how many of these hedge funds have fared in the last year, head to our post on hedge fund performance numbers (as well as more here). Throughout the crisis, a few winners and losers emerged as it pertains to the assets under management (AUM) battle. Ray Dalio's Bridgewater Associates expanded by 21% and John Paulson's hedge fund firm Paulson & Co increased assets by 10%. On the losing side of things, Thomas Steyer's Farallon Capital saw over a 40% decline in assets while Och-Ziff Capital Management dropped 30%. Many people probably wouldn't say "JPMorgan" when asked who the largest hedge fund in the world was. Maybe that's the reason why so many other long/short equity funds have sizable stakes in JPM.
Definitely check out the rest of Pensions&Investments research here and make sure to stay up to date with our coverage of hedge fund portfolios on a daily basis.
