Fifty-five new Asian hedge funds raised more than $3.5bn of assets in the first half of 2005, according to research published in the July edition of AsiaHedge.
AsiaHedge’s half-yearly survey of the Asian hedge fund industry shows that the number and size of new fund launches are both well up on the record pace of the same period last year, when about 40 new funds were launched in the first half raising around $1.7 billion of assets.
Traditionally, the bulk of assets raised by new hedge funds in Asia occur in the second half of the year (see tables below) – which should mean that the sudden splurge in the first half points towards another record for the full year as a whole.
The big winner among the strategies was Asia ex-Japan – if you also include the single-country, mainly China and India focused funds, categorized in the ‘Other’ column, which also includes multi-strategy funds investing primarily outside Japan.
The total is all the more impressive given that it excludes a number of very big new global hedge funds launched this year, which invest a significant proportion of their assets in Asia–but not sufficiently to meet our definition as Asian funds. Together, they probably boost the investable capital of the new funds by further $2 billion, which would boost the total to well over $5 billion.