Volatility-focused hedge fund firm QVR Advisors is closing its investment fund and seeking to sell its management business after a sharp downturn in performance and sustained investor withdrawals, according to a report by Bloomberg.
The report cites Benn Eifert. Founder and managing partner of the San Francisco-based firm, which managed about $1.6bn at its peak earlier this year, as revealing that the firm lost roughly 30% between January and April. The losses were driven by a series of unsuccessful positions across its volatility and derivatives strategies, alongside continued outflows from investors.
Eifert said the closure reflects a broader industry trend in which smaller hedge funds are struggling to survive amid rising operational pressures, investor demands for higher risk-adjusted returns, and the difficulty of managing large drawdowns without the scale advantages enjoyed by larger rivals.
He added that the decline was not the result of a single event but rather a prolonged period of underperformance across multiple strategies, ultimately making the business unsustainable in its current form. The firm is now exploring the sale of its remaining assets, including intellectual property and its customised strategies division.
QVR, short for Quantitative Volatility Research, was founded in 2017 and specialised in volatility trading, options and derivatives strategies. The fund saw strong performance in earlier years, including a gain of nearly 80% in 2020, before later being converted into a multi-strategy vehicle.
