25/01/2012 Author: Tony Griffiths

Inflows drive assets back over $2trn

Healthy inflows for the year and positive performance in the last quarter saw the hedge fund industry finish 2011 by once again passing the $2trn milestone, Hedge Fund Research (HFR) data revealed this week.

Having declined to $1.97trn at the end of Q3 2011 from a record high of $2.04trn in the middle of the year, performance gains in October pushed total assets up to $2.01trn, the Chicago-based data provider said in its annual summary.

Asset flows for 2011 were net positive, with investors pumping $70bn back into the industry – up from $55bn in 2010. Once again the majority of new capital went to larger managers, with firms with over $5bn in AuM receiving $50.7bn, over 70% of the total.   

Fund of hedge funds, however,  fared less well, dropping $43bn for the year, to $629bn. Hedge funds in a Ucits wrapper, however, also saw net gains. According to Alix Capital’s Ucits Alternative Index, the onshore industry finished the year with $112.9bn in AuM, up from $96bn at the end of 2010.