In 2009, just over 450 hedge funds around the world closed their doors for good in the aftermath of 2008 - one of the most turbulent periods in economic history since the Great Depression.
However, this total number of shutdowns did fall by nearly 10% in 2009 compared to 2008, when there were close to 500 closures around the world. Nevertheless, the total is still well above pre-2007 levels in all regions. As before, the way we measured this attrition rate was to count each strategy only once, and not for each and every onshore or offshore version, or currency class (as in some other databases).
In the Americas, there were at least 214 shutdowns during the...