FT – For hedge funds, with all due deference to Dickens, this is the best of times, and this is the worst of times. Never since the sector began to take on meaningful shape some two decades ago has its performance, in aggregate, been so poor. And yet never has it been so successful in raising assets from the public.
Not only that, but surveys suggest that if ever hedge fund managers lie awake worrying at night, it is their attempts to raise funds, rather than to manage money, that worry them. When State Street and Preqin interviewed some 400 alternative fund managers globally, they found that their greatest concern was raising assets. Investment performance came second, just ahead of preserving their fees.
