Hedge funds across the globe are now managing collective assets of almost $2.65 trillion, according to an analysis of the databases and latest surveys of the industry conducted around the world by HedgeFund Intelligence. The total is up sharply from a global figure that first breached $1.5 trillion about two years ago, and which stood at $2.079 trillion at the beginning of 2007.
However, while the growth of industry assets was a robust 27% for the year as a whole, this disguises what was a marked slowdown in the pace of growth during the second half of the year. Assets had already grown to $2.482 trillion by the mid-year point of 2007 – as the ‘credit crunch’ was just about to hit the markets. Our latest figure of $2.646 trillion for January 2008 shows that the industry did manage to keep growing during the second half, but...