Investors pulled USD19.96 billion from the global hedge fund business in December, bringing full-year 2021 hedge fund AUM growth to +USD15.90 billion, according to eVestment’s December and Full Year 2021 Hedge Fund Asset Flows report.
Investors pulled USD19.96 billion from the global hedge fund business in December, bringing full-year 2021 hedge fund AUM growth to +USD15.90 billion, according to eVestment’s December and Full Year 2021 Hedge Fund Asset Flows report.
Overall AUM for the hedge fund business closed out 2021 at USD3.633 trillion in a generally strong year for hedge fund performance and AUM growth.
“While December’s outflows did significantly minimize the hedge fund industry’s overall 2021 apparent success, this year still goes down as the first year of net inflows since 2017 and second since 2015,” says eVestment Global Head of Research Peter Laurelli. “It was a good year for the industry. Just not as good as it seemed it was going to be.”
Multi-Strategy funds were the biggest asset losers in December, with investors pulling -USD7.41 billion from these funds. For all of 2021, these funds pulled in +USD20.83 billion in new money. Laurelli notes the overall picture for Multi-Strategy funds is a bit clouded.
“December’s net outflow from Multi-Strategy funds is the result of an ongoing isolated capital shift within one of the universe’s largest firms,” he says. “Were that influence to be removed from December’s data, the results would show another month of net inflow for Multi-Strategy funds. Regardless, the universe led the industry in 2021 for net inflows, its first annual net inflow since 2015.”
