New York (HedgeCo.net) – While many news reports focused on the negative returns for some high-profile hedge fund managers in 2015, there were other managers that performed well and those managers were paid very well for their performance.

A recent Forbes article named Ken Griffin of Citadel the top earning hedge fund manager in 2015 with James Simons of Renaissance Technologies finishing second. According to the article, Griffin earned $1.7 billion while Simons earned $1.65 billion. The reason for these two ranking at the top has to do with two things: the amount of money they manage and their performance in a very challenging year.

In a year where the average hedge fund lost 0.85% and the S&P 500 gained a meager 1.4%, Citadel’s main fund gained 14.3% net of fees and other Citadel funds gained as much as 17%. Renaissance’s Institutional Equities fund was up 17% and the Institutional Diversified Alpha fund gained 16% with both of those figures being net of fees.
While hedge fund managers are often criticized for the fees they charge, Citadel and Renaissance Technologies earned their fees last year and their clients should be satisfied with the returns achieved in 2015.