Investors withdrew $111 billion from hedge funds in 2022, the industry's third-worst year of outflows in 15 years, as a string of Federal Reserve rate hikes aimed at tackling soaring inflation pulled down asset prices, according to a report by Dow Jones.

The report cites fund flows data from eVestment as revealing that the outflows were the worst since the the final coal crisis of 2008-2009 and the heavy redemptions seen in both 2016 and 2019.

Hardest hit were fixed income funds with an estimated $43 billion in outflows, while long-short equity strategies saw outflows of nearly $38 billion over the year.

Multistrategy funds meanwhile, found favour with investors pulling in about $6 billion in 2022, with managed futures funds also seeing positive inflows, according to eVestment.