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Unsurprisingly, the growth in hedge fund assets has occurred mainly in commodity trading, global macro and relative value strategies. Yet some big onshore managers operating in multi-strategy as well as in long/short equity have also made a major impact on asset levels. The result is that the total assets under management of the Europe 50 firms rose over 7% to $414 billion, up from $385 billion in our mid-year 2011 survey. This is another record for the Europe 50 and takes their total AUM further along from the early 2008 pre-crisis peak of $366 billion.

Man Investments again took the top slot with $41.4 billion in AUM at 30 June, 2012 across its range of single manager funds, representing a jump of 21% from the $34.1 billion a year earlier. Much of Man’s gain reflected a jump in managed account assets to $7.6 billion from $1.4 billion. Moving up to the number two slot is Brevan Howard with AUM of $36.7 billion, up a healthy 14% from the 30 June 2011 AUM of $32.1 billion. The Brevan Howard Multi-Strategy Master Fund nearly quadrupled AUM to $3.35 billion over the year, while the Brevan Howard Master Fund gained over $2 billion in assets owing to its resilient investment performance in 2011 under the aegis of Alan Howard.

Moving up one position to third in the Europe 50 is BlueCrest Capital Management where AUM grew 16% to $31.1 billion from $26.8 billion a year earlier. BlueCrest added capital in both its discretionary funds overseen my Mike Platt and in its systematic funds managed by Leda Braga. Moving further up the table, from fifth to fourth, is Winton Capital Management with a 27% rise in AUM to $28.5 billion from $22.4 billion. Meanwhile, Standard Life Investments recorded the biggest jump in terms of funds managed with AUM more than doubling to $27.3 billion, a performance that took the firm to fifth overall, up from ninth a year ago.

The gains of the top five funds took their AUM to $165 billion, accounting for 40% of the total assets managed by Europe 50 firms compared with 38% last year. Greater concentration of assets among the top five is a trend that continues unabated. Only two years ago they managed just $108 billion.

A very big splash for a new entrant is made by Cantab Capital Partners, the Cambridge-based global systematic manager founded in 2006. It enters the Europe 50 ranked thirty-second as assets grew sharply to $3.1 billion. Capula edges into ninth as assets rose to $13 billion from $8.6 billion, while Paris-based CTA Capital Fund Management moves up to twenty first from thirty fourth, with AUM rising to $5.8 billion. You can access the Europe 50 report here.

Press release

bc