New York (HedgeCo.net) – As the hedge fund industry continues to grow, it also continues to face changes. The industry has seen its share of detractors in recent years, but it also continues to attract new assets. Some strategies have seen declines in assets, while others have seen an increase.
Barclays’ capital solutions group conducted a survey recently that included 110 funds with approximately $375 billion in assets under management. A recent article from Business Insider highlighted the strategies with greatest growth.

The strategies with the greatest growth included equity strategies at 20%, fixed income relative value grew at a 19% rate and multi-strategy funds grew by 9%. Conversely, macro strategies only grew at a 2% rate and systematic/volatility strategies only grew at a 3% rate.

These growth rates are over the last two years. The report stated that, “This reflects both recent performance as well as investor interest in these strategies over the past couple of years.”

“Anecdotally, most of the ‘buzz’ in the HF industry has been about smaller and emerging HFs, yet most flows still go to larger, more established firms. Over the last four years, at least four-fifths of net flows have gone to $1bn+ firms, and more than half have gone to the largest firms ($5bn+). The next largest HF size category, $500mn – $1bn, has seen an increase in flows on an annual basis, but still achieved a high of only 3% of overall flows over the period.