Forbes – Billionaire John Paulson received a lot of press for a 36% drop in his Advantage Plus fund last year as assets at Paulson & Co. fell below $20 billion. But investors continue to look at the hedge fund manager as a way to bet on rising merger and acquisition activity globally, as companies scale their operations and take advantage of record-low financing costs.
Paulson & Co. saw billions of dollars in net inflows to its largest and longest-standing strategy, merger arbitrage, where performance was roughly flat in spite of legal decisions that hammered some of the firm’s largest positions. The hedge fund entered 2014 with $7 billion dedicated to its merger arbitrage strategy. By the end of the year, assets were $9.2 billion, according to two sources familiar with the matter, even as performance was uninspiring.
