The Hedgeweek USA Awards 2013 presented last night in New York City brought together the leading names in the US hedge funds industry to celebrate the achievements of the best performing managers and service providers in 2012.
Delivering the opening remarks at the Awards, Jim Munsell, Partner, Sidley Austin, LLP, highlighted a number of significant business and regulatory developments for alternative investment funds and their managers. He concluded: “Most of the recent developments have served to increase barriers to entry, increase costs, and compress operating margins. Nevertheless, this remains a great business to be in, with tremendous opportunities for wealth creation for those with sufficient capital and a willingness to embrace the new realities of the post-crisis alternative asset management world.”
With the much-anticipated liberalisation of hedge fund marketing regulations, managers at the event agreed the challenge for hedge funds in the USA this year is to maintain performance in the face of significant competition from other investment sectors.
To ensure that nominees for the fund manager awards were selected not just for their performance and size, but also for sound qualitative reasons, Hedgeweek commissioned Marianne Scordel of Bougeville Consulting to research the top three performers in each of the hedge fund strategies during 2012. The list of nominees was then sent to Hedgeweek’s readers, who were asked to vote for the top manager in each strategy (see list of winners below).
The winners were determined by the votes of Hedgeweek’s 41,000 readers, who include institutional investors, wealth managers, fund managers and other industry professionals at firms including fund administrators, prime brokers, custodians, law firms and advisers.
The full list of top three managers each in strategy will be published in the forthcoming Hedgeweek USA Awards 2013 report, along with Bougeville Consulting’s analysis.
The complete list of winners of the Hedgeweek USA Awards 2013 is published below:
Best Macro Manager – Swiss Seagull
Best Event Driven Activist Manager – Jana Partners
Best Event Driven Merger Arbitrage Manager – Paulson & Co
Best Event Driven Distressed Manager – HG Vora Capital Management
Best Event Driven Multi-Strategy Manager – Numen Capital
Best Relative Value Convertible Bond Arbitrage Manager – HFR Asset Management
Best Relative Value Volatility Arbitrage Manager – LJM Partners
Best Relative Value Multi-Strategy Manager – Barnegat Fund Management
Best Equity Short Bias Manager – Silvercreek Management
Best Equity Market Neutral Manager – Bayou City Capital, L.P
Best North American Index Provider – HFR
Best North American Hedge Fund Administrator – Admiral Administration
Highly Commended North American Hedge Fund Administrator – Opus Fund Services
Best Offshore Hedge Fund Administrator – Meridian Fund Services
Best Prime Broker – Concept Capital
Best North American Hedge Fund Research Provider – BTIG
Best Managed Accounts Platform – Lyxor
Best Seeding Platform – Tiger Management
Best Risk Management Software Provider – CurAlea
Best Fund Accounting and Reporting System – Sungard VPM
Best Managed Account Platform Technology – Eze Castle Integration
Best North American Trading Venue – Liquidnet
Best North American Accounting Firm – Anchin Block & Anchin LLP
Best North American Regulatory Advisory Firm – Turnkey Trading Partners
Best North American Public Relations Firm – Walek & Associates
Best North American Law Firm – Sidley Austin LLP
Best Offshore Law Firm – Mourant Ozannes
Best North American Third Party Marketing Firm – Agecroft Partners
