Caxton Associates, run by Bruce Kovner, is now the biggest hedge fund in the world with assets of $10.5 billion. Or so says the Absolute Return list of the Top 100 US Hedge Funds.
Caxton saw assets grow by almost $3 billion last year, thanks to the performance and popularity of macro and multi-strategy funds. It jumped from third last year, when its assets were narrowly behind Moore Capital and Farallon.
Andor Capital Management moved into second place, having taken in $1.5billion over the past 12 months. “An impressive feat given that it was achieved in the teeth of the equity bear market in which many equity specialists have seen assets shrink,” says Absolute Return. “One of the principal findings in the Absolute Return survey is the scale of the investor flight from the big US equity shops. With a few notable exceptions, such as Andor and a handful of other funds, the big equity managers have seen sharp asset falls following a period of poor returns. An obvious conclusion that can be drawn from the survey is that the industry is still in a very fluid state with clear winners and losers and huge swings in assets. At one extreme a number of firms disappeared altogether from the top 100 funds, while others continued to flourish and attract assets. “
The Top 10 US Hedge Fund Groups 2003:
1.
Caxton Associates – $10.5 billion2.
Andor Capital Management – $9.0 billion3.
Cerberus Capital Management – $8.7 billion4.
Citadel Investment Group – $8.5 billion5.
Angelo Gordon & Co. – $8.0 billion6.
Moore Capital Management – $8.0 billion7.
Farallon Capital Management – $7.8 billion8.
Maverick Capital – $7.5 billion9.
Tudor Investment Corp. – $7.5 billion10.
Soros Fund Management – $7.2 billion
The league table appears in the second issue of Absolute Return, the US hedge fund magazine launched earlier this year by Iain Jenkins’s HedgeFund Intelligence publishing group.