A new study finds that standalone hedge fund assets grew in the first half of 2012, but fund of fund assets declined, leaving industry assets at about US$2.3 trillion.
Analytics firm, PerTrac, reports that single-manager hedge funds increased their reported assets under management to US$1.89 trillion, which represents a 5.2% gain. However, it also saw a continued decline in the reported AUM of funds of hedge funds (FoHFs) by 4.92% to US$425 billion.
The firm notes that part of the slide in FoHF assets is due to a decline in the number of them reporting their data, but, at the same time, the number of single manager funds reporting grew year over year.
PerTrac says the numbers suggest that asset allocators have a growing interest in alternative investments, and an increasing tendency toward investing directly in hedge funds.
The largest funds captured the bulk of new assets, it notes, with funds of at least US$1 billion in AUM increasing their aggregate AUM to US$1.146 trillion from US$1.08 trillion at the end of 2011. The billion-dollar-plus funds represented 60.6% of all assets invested with single-manager hedge funds at the end of the first half of 2012, it reports.
The same trend is evident among FoHFs too, where 48.7% of assets are controlled by the 3.24% of firms that each managed more than US$1 billion.