The global hedge fund business continues to set, then break, new overall AUM records as investors pour more money into hedge funds and performance gains bolster industry AUM further.
According to the just-released August eVestment Hedge Fund Asset Flows Report, investors added another +USD12.03 billion to hedge funds in August. Year to date (YTD) inflows sit at +USD38.28 billion. That new money coupled with performance gains throughout the year brought the overall hedge fund business to a record USD3.622 trillion AUM last month.
“This year has been a good one for hedge fund AUM growth, and August net flows and performance continued the trend,” says eVestment Global Head of Research and report author Peter Laurelli. “Inflows were well distributed, with about 57 per cent of managers reporting to eVestment seeing inflows and overall there are many underlying metrics of hedge fund industry health.”
Laurelli notes that clearly some funds have seen outflows, highlighting the importance for investors of carefully selecting and monitoring the hedge funds with which they invest. “Outflows have absolutely existed last month and this year,” he says. “It can be a positive for the hedge fund business to have those assets unlocked and potentially redistributed broadly across the industry.”
Multi-Strategy hedge funds were the big asset winners in August among the primary strategies eVestment tracks, pulling in +USD3.70 billion in new investor money. This brings these funds’ year-to-date (YTD) inflows to +USD23.62 billion, making them the top asset gainer among primary strategies in 2021. However, with only 47 per cent of Multi-Strategy funds reporting to eVestment seeing inflows, the success of the segment is not being felt by all Multi-Strategy funds.
