Top Funds of Funds Hold Their Own Though a not-insignificant number of wealthy households and estates have pulled money from funds of funds, most pensions and foundations appear to be standing behind this year's Fund of Funds 50, Alpha magazine's seventh annual ranking of the world's biggest multimanager hedge fund firms. They have largely avoided radical drawdowns of investor funds; the industry's total assets under management approached a record $900 billion at the end of June.
"We budgeted at the beginning of the year for 10 percent in redemptions of fee-paying money," says J. Tomilson Hill, president and CEO of New York–based Blackstone Alternative Asset Management. “We have come in well under that." Blackstone, No. 8 in this year's ranking, with $31.5 billion in assets under management as of July 1, had $30 billion at the end of September.
Executives at Geneva-based Union Bancaire Privée say institutional investors have stayed particularly faithful. The firm's $56.9 billion in assets as of the end of June barely edge out the $56.7 billion of Zurich’s UBS Alternative and Quantitative Investments to give UBP the No. 1 rank in the Fund of Funds 50. Roman Igolnikov, the New York–based chief investment officer at UBP Asset Management, concedes that the industry is "obviously challenged" but says inflows have outpaced redemptions.
How We Compiled the Ranking The data for Alpha’s 2008 Fund of Funds 50 were gathered from questionnaires completed by the fund-of-hedge-funds firms themselves, research in the public record and extensive staff reporting. In some cases we have included estimates based on our reporting. Only multimanager hedge fund portfolios are included in the asset figures. Assets are stated in millions of dollars and are current as of June 30, 2008, unless otherwise noted. This ranking was compiled by Associate Research Editor Julia Leikin, under the guidance of Assistant Managing Editor Sathya Rajavelu. Inevitably, we will have overlooked some institutions that belong on our list. If we missed yours, please send an e-mail to FoF50@iimagazine.com to request a questionnaire for the 2009 ranking.