Financial Services Agency (FSA) has released the result of survey regarding investment activities for hedge fund answered by domestic financial institutions investment activities in hedge funds.
The result shows that the total amount of investment in hedge fund at the end of fiscal 2004 was 6.1 trillion yen, and one-fourth of financial institutions were actually involved in such activities. In addition, the number of established hedge fund by domestic financial institutions totaled 735 over the past five years (2000-2004), and amounted to 2.5 trillion yen. The amount of such funds sold to domestic investors, including overseas products, reached 5.9 trillion yen. The sales by financial institutions to individual investors accounted for 16 %.
Companies including banks, insurance companies, securities companies, and investment advisors answered the survey, and the definition used for hedge fund was to satisfy the following 3 factors: using leverage method, collecting incentive fee for fund managers and using special investment strategy such as long and short strategy.