Hedge Fund Managers are Back
Duncan Greenberg, 03.11.10, 11:40 AM EST
Forbes Magazine dated March 29, 2010
John Paulson became a billionaire in 2007 shorting the lowliest tranches of subprime mortgages. Last year, he told investors in a letter in January, he made billions more buying the same, not to mention bonds issued by troubled auto lender GMAC and loans from deals turned precarious, like the $48 billion buyout of power producer TXU. His net worth: $12 billion. David Tepper of Appaloosa, another billionaire hedge fund manager (net worth: $3.5 billion), bought distressed debt and shares of Bank of America ( BAC - news - people ) and Citigroup ( C - news - people ) as the market neared its March 2009 lows.
They are among 21 hedge fund billionaires who, as a group, recouped their losses from the 2008 crash. Their funds returned 34% on average last year net of fees for a two-year annualized gain of 11%. This compares with a 12% annualized loss for the S&P 500 and a 4% loss for the entire hedge fund industry. The firms in our sample now manage $370 billion in assets, or a fifth of all hedge fund investments.
Only one manager fell off the list in the past 12 months: Raj Rajaratnam, whose Galleon Group was liquidated last fall amid insider trading charges.
Billionaire
Hedge Fund
2008Returns
2009Returns
2-YearReturns(Annualized)
2010Assets($Mil)
James Simons I Renaissance Technologies (Medallion) 80% 45% 62% $15,000
John Arnold I Centaurus Energy 85 26* 52 5,500
David Tepper I Appaloosa Management -26 132 31 12,500
John Paulson I Paulson & Co. 38 14 25 32,000
George Soros I Soros Fund Management 8 29 18 27,000
Marc Lasry I Avenue Capital -25 66 12 20,100
Bruce Kovner I Caxton Associates 13 6 10 8,000
Louis Bacon I Moore Capital Management -5 21 8 14,600
Israel Englander I Millennium Management -3 17 7 7,500
Paul Tudor Jones I Tudor Investment Corp. -4 17 6 10,000
Returns are all net of fees. Where firmwide performance is not available, we list the returns of the firm's flagship fund. *Through 9/30/09. |
