Start-up hedge funds in the US raised record sums of money in the first half of 2004 with over $12 billion pouring into new launches, according to a survey by Euromoney-owned Absolute Return magazine.
The research shows that the biggest 47 start-ups raised $10 billion between them. It suggests that, given the pipeline of major launches planned for the second half of the year, US start-ups are on course to surpass the assets raised by new funds last year, which topped $25 billion.
Among the bigger planned launches is Eton Park, which is being started by Eric Mindich, formerly at Goldman Sachs, and is expected to raise at least $3 billion.
One of the trends of the first half was the move by a number of managers to spin out of their existing organizations, says Absolute Return. The biggest start-up was Minneapolis-based Black River Capital, which started with $1.3 billion following its spinout from Cargill.
The next biggest launch was Ospraie, which raised $1.2 billion following its spinout from Tudor Capital Management.
Existing groups also started a number of big new products, with Highbridge raising $510 million for its new event-driven fund and Gruss & Co raising $341 million of its multi-strategy fund.
The top five Launches in the first half of 2004 were:
1. Black River $1.3 billion2. Ospraie $1.2 billion3. Highbridge Event $500 million4. Kamunting Street $500 million5. Basso Multi-Strategy $430 million