Pensions & Investments – Activist hedge funds pulled in at least $2 billion in new assets from institutional investors over the past two years, with a marked acceleration in pace in the second half of 2011 and so far in 2012.
In many cases, institutional investors are using traditional long-only equity assets — rather than dedicated hedge fund allocations — to fund big-ticket mandates to equity hedge funds that focus on pushing for operational changes in public companies in order to increase shareholder value.