Neil Wilson, managing editor, HedgeFund Intelligence
For the full list of Billion Dollar Club firms, please click here
The biggest players in the global hedge fund industry are continuing to get bigger, accounting for a rising proportion of total assets, according to the latest statistics on the Global Billion Dollar Club – the elite group of firms that manage $1 billion or more in hedge fund assets.
Collectively, the 340 current members of the Global Billion Dollar Club now manage assets of just over $1.76 trillion, up again from around $1.7 trillion a year before, and now representing over 86% of the industry’s total assets – up from 84% last year and 82% the year before.
The lion’s share of this increase is also concentrated in the ‘super-league’ of biggest firms that manage $5 billion or more. The number of firms in that category has edged up from 93 to 99 in the past year, and collectively they account for nearly $1.23 trillion – up from $1.15 trillion a year before, and now getting close to 60% of the industry’s total assets.
The US market remains very much the top location for the world’s biggest hedge fund firms. There are currently 230 firms that manage hedge fund assets of $1 billion or more from the US. And New York is still the biggest single centre of the industry, being home to no fewer than 139 of those firms, up from 128 a year before – though the proportion of assets they account for has again slipped from 44.96% to 42.61%.
There is still a long list of big hedge funds that also operate from headquarters in other parts of the US, including other states in the northeast such as Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Jersey, as well as across other states including California, Texas and Illinois.
London remains in second place overall, and though its number of Club members is down from 63 to 57, the share of assets of those firms is slightly up, at 14.55%. Despite fears that higher taxes and tougher regulations may dent the competitive position of London, the UK capital remains very much the biggest centre for hedge funds in Europe – with Paris and Stockholm being the next two biggest centres, both a long way ahead of Geneva.
While firms based in Asia remain a relatively small portion of assets in the industry overall, the number of local firms in the region reaching the Billion Dollar Club continue to rise steadily. The number in Hong Kong was up from 11 to 13 during the year (with combined assets rising from $15.56 billion to $20.52 billion) and the number in Singapore was up from seven to eight (though with combined assets a little lower). The number of members in Australia was down a little from eight to seven, split between Sydney and Melbourne.
The total number of firms on the list now comes to 340 – a figure that de-duplicates for a number of big groups such as BlackRock, Och-Ziff and Brevan Howard that run $1 billion-plus funds from related companies in more than one location. This is up a little from last year, when there were 330 firms on the list.
The Global Billion Dollar Club – where the managers are located
|
Location
|
No of firms*
|
AUM ($bn)
|
% total assets
|
|
New York, USA
|
139
|
751.36
|
42.61%
|
|
London, UK
|
57
|
256.46
|
14.55%
|
|
Connecticut, USA
|
25
|
192.17
|
10.90%
|
|
California, USA
|
23
|
109.22
|
6.20%
|
|
Central, Hong Kong
|
13
|
20.52
|
1.16%
|
|
Massachusetts, USA
|
10
|
105.69
|
6.00%
|
|
Texas, USA
|
9
|
27.64
|
1.57%
|
|
Singapore
|
8
|
9.14
|
0.52%
|
|
Illinois, USA
|
6
|
28.46
|
1.61%
|
|
Minnesota, USA
|
6
|
20.40
|
1.16%
|
|
Paris, France
|
5
|
17.02
|
0.97%
|
|
New Jersey, USA
|
4
|
24.27
|
1.38%
|
|
Sydney, Australia
|
4
|
15.98
|
0.91%
|
|
Stockholm, Sweden
|
3
|
22.32
|
1.27%
|
|
Hamilton, Bermuda
|
3
|
12.17
|
0.69%
|
|
Wisconsin, USA
|
3
|
8.20
|
0.47%
|
|
Toronto, Canada
|
3
|
5.64
|
0.32%
|
|
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
|
3
|
4.69
|
0.27%
|
|
Melbourne, Australia
|
3
|
2.61
|
0.15%
|
|
Georgia, USA
|
2
|
14.63
|
0.83%
|
|
Geneva, Switzerland
|
2
|
5.06
|
0.29%
|
|
Florida, USA
|
2
|
3.27
|
0.19%
|
|
Moscow, Russia
|
2
|
2.82
|
0.16%
|
|
Tokyo, Japan
|
2
|
2.37
|
0.13%
|
|
Other
|
22
|
100.96
|
5.73%
|
|
Total
|
340*
|
1,763.07
|
100
|
|
Source: HedgeFund Intelligence *Number of firms de-duplicated to account for groups which run $1bn-plus funds from more than one location |