Nice list with summaries of managers and strategies. http://media.ft.com/cms/02fd5a42-f338-11db-9845-000b5df10621.pdf FT REPORT - HEDGE FUNDS: How and why they are in the list By James Mackintosh, Financial Times Published: Apr 27, 2007 Hedge funds, sceptics like to say, are a compensation structure masquerading as an asset class. A glance at the list that follows will show the truth underlying the cliché: hedge funds have few common features beside their performance-linked fees, writes James Mackintosh. Long-short funds buying and selling equities are a far cry from global macro investors betting on interest rates and currency movements. Still less are they linked to the funds investing in distressed sovereign debt,or even football players. As a result, picking out 100 noteworthy hedge fund managers from the more than 9,500 in existence is not a scientific process, and many may feel unjustly excluded. The selection is based on factors such as size, activity in the public markets and appeal, tested against big investors and funds of funds. But it also involves such softer elements as "newsworthiness" of the strategy followed - aggressive activists generate more column inches - and the non-investment activities of the relevant manager. The listing is not intended to be used to select investments - indeed some studies have shown that throwing darts at a list can be as effective as the lengthy due diligence exercised by professional investors in hedge funds. Instead, it is hoped it provides a handy reference guide for readers faced daily with references to hedge funds of which they may vaguely be aware but with which they have little contact. Because of the secretive nature of much of the industry, this information can be extremely hard to extract from funds, so much of the data that follows comes from investors rather than the funds themselves, and may be incomplete.
Its interesting to see the returns by those funds, many in the single digits to low teens, but the big names are still pulling in 30-40, ESL, SAC, Renaissance. Makes you wonder why people go with the other funds when some one like Lampert is currently looking to raise capital.
the big names you referred to are basically activist hedge funds ESL+SAC, and Crazy Quant Fund tough to compare these returns with people pursuing other strategies which have been arbed down to a penny..
Sure, but then why would you go put your money in the other funds? ESL has been getting 30% after fees for years now, and he just said he is going to Goldman Sachs to raise more capital, why isn't there 3-5 Billion dollars at his door step the second he says that? Id be pulling all my money out of the other funds if i could and giving it to Eddie.