Hedge funds are likely to underperform equity markets for the sixth straight year, and two large U.S. pension plans recently said they are pulling back from hedge funds, yet overall allocations to hedge funds are expected to hold up says Fitch Ratings.
In a new report, the rating agency projects that hedge fund assets under management (AUM) should continue churning toward the US$3.0 trillion mark, up from US$2.6 trillion at the start of the year. “The rise is attributable to market appreciation and inflows outpacing redemptions,” it says.
Fitch reports that recent flows into hedge funds shows significant variation by strategy, “with equity-oriented funds attracting more capital in recent periods, but global macro funds falling from favour.”
At the same time, a couple of major U.S. pension managers — the California Pension Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) and the San Francisco Employees’ Retirement System (SFERS) — recently indicated that they are pulling back their hedge fund allocations. Yet, Fitch says that these high-profile pension plan withdrawals “are not representative of broader sector trends, in our view.”
Fitch does expect that other public pension funds will at least “revisit the topic of hedge fund investing” in light of the CalPERS decision. But, it notes that hedge funds have generally been successful at winning and keeping U.S. public pension assets. It says that flow data shows improvements in hedge fund investment allocations by public pensions since 2010.
Fitch says it believes that continued allocation to hedge fund investments more broadly “speaks to investors’ belief that hedge fund investments can often deliver competitive returns net of fees, while providing a degree of downside protection and uncorrelated return during periods of stress.”
“In some regards, hedge funds could potentially benefit from a material correction in the markets, if their performance avoids surprises and delivers uncorrelated performance with the market correction,” it concludes.