Single-Manager HFs See AUM Climb 5% In H1

Single-manager hedge funds (including commodity trading advisors) saw their assets under management rise 5.23% in H1 2012 to $1.89 trillion, according to PerTrac.

On the other hand, funds of hedge funds saw their AUM fall 4.9% over the first half to $425 billion, a decline due in part to a 3.8% decline in the number of funds of funds reporting to databases.

The total amount invested in the hedge fund industry stood at $2.32 trillion by the end of the first half of 2012. The number of funds reporting to databases also increased—up 4.6% to 14,013 (10,754 of which were single-manager funds).

Most of the gains in the number of single-manager hedge funds (75%) came from small and start-up funds with less than $25 million in assets under management.

Investors still tend to favor the larger funds—single-manager funds with AUM over $1 billion managed 60.6% of all single-manager AUM as of the end of H1 12, or $1.15 trillion.

 “Although challenging economic conditions have impacted hedge funds’ performance during the last few years, investors still see their long term value and are giving them a significant place in their portfolios,” said Brendan Dolan, president of PerTrac. 

PerTrac aggregates information from 11 leading global databases.