After a wretched 2018, hedge funds — and the broader markets — had a much better run last year.
In 2019, the Standard & Poor’s 500 stock market index gained a blistering 31 percent — but a handful of hedge fund managers posted even better results. They will be among the winners at Institutional Investor’s 18th annual Hedge Fund Industry Awards.
Not surprisingly, equity-focused hedge fund managers excelled last year. Tiger Management alum Chase Coleman’s Tiger Global Management continued its winning streak, having been among a small group of equity fund managers to notch double-digit gains in 2018. Last year his firm’s flagship hedge fund surged 10 percent in the fourth quarter — when many hedge funds posted their biggest losses all year — to bring its total gain for 2019 to 33 percent.
Joseph Edelman’s Perceptive Advisors also earned a nod in the equity-focused category after posting blowout gains in 2019. The biotech-oriented equity hedge fund surged 54 percent return last year.
And Larry Robbins’ healthcare-oriented equity hedge fund, Glenview Capital Partners, notched a gain of more than 26 percent last year. Rounding out the category are Lucerne Capital Management, SAC Capital Advisors alum Gabriel Plotkin’s Melvin Capital Management, and Alex Denner’s Sarissa Capital Management.
Activist strategies, which tend to be long-only and highly concentrated, also yielded some strong performances last year. Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square Capital delivered a standout performance in the category, rocketing up 58.1 percent last year. He is one of a handful of managers who is keeping the gains going amid 2020’s coronavirus-induced market turmoil, telling investors this week that his firm’s publicly traded vehicle, Pershing Square Holdings, had gained 2.8 percent this year through Monday thanks to a new hedge he put in place recently.
Christopher Hohn’s TCI Fund Management posted its best gains since 2013, rising 40.6 percent in 2019. They are among the six firms nominated in the category.
This year II is pleased to introduce a new category, Most Innovative Hedge Fund of the Year, honoring the well-established hedge fund firms that made big, bold investments in new strategies, investing formats, and other initiatives that fall outside of the realm of typical hedge funds. The nominees include Perceptive Advisors, ValueAct Capital, and Elliott Management Corp.
See below for the full list of nominees.
[II Deep Dive: Here Are the Winners of II’s 2019 Hedge Fund Awards]
The voting process for the Hedge Fund Awards begins with a public call for nominations. The II editorial staff concurrently devises a list of candidates based on its own knowledge of the firms and institutions, as well as discussions with its network of industry sources. All the nominations, as well as the internally generated candidates, are then vetted based on how strongly the editorial team believes they meet a wide range of criteria for their respective categories.
After the nominees are publicly announced, II conducts a survey of U.S. allocators and invites them to vote for the manager nominees. The winners will be revealed at a gala dinner and ceremony at the Mandarin Oriental in New York on Thursday, June 25. For more information on the event, visit hedgefundindustryawards.com.
Institutional Hedge Fund Manager of the Year
- Citadel
- Millennium Management
- Renaissance Technologies
- D.E. Shaw & Co.
- Viking Global Investors
- Brevan Howard
Emerging Hedge Fund Manager of the Year
- Sunriver Management
- Clearfield Capital Management
- D1 Capital Partners
- Cat Rock Capital
- Spruce Point Capital Management
- ExodusPoint Capital Management
Equity-Focused Hedge Fund Manager of the Year
- Tiger Global Management
- Glenview Capital Management
- Melvin Capital Management
- Perceptive Advisors
- Lucerne Capital Management
- Sarissa Capital Management
Credit-Focused Hedge Fund Manager of the Year
- Mudrick Capital Management
- LibreMax Capital
- Latam Consumer Credit
- EJF Capital
- GoldenTree Asset Management
- Canyon Partners
Multistrategy Hedge Fund of the Year
- Citadel
- D.E. Shaw & Co.
- Sculptor Capital Management
- CQS
- Millennium Management
- Schonfeld Securities
Activist Hedge Fund Manager of the Year
- TCI Fund Management
- Corvex Management
- ValueAct Capital
- Trian Fund Management
- Pershing Square Capital Management
- Sachem Head Capital Management
Event-Driven Hedge Fund Manager of the Year
- Soroban Capital Partners
- Sarissa Capital Management
- Mudrick Capital Management
- Third Point
- HG Vora Capital Management
- Elliott Management Corp.
Macro Hedge Fund Manager of the Year
- Element Capital Management
- Tudor Investment Corp.
- Caxton Associates
- Brevan Howard
- Rokos Capital Management
- Haidar Capital Management
Quantitative Hedge Fund Manager of the Year
- Renaissance Technologies
- PDT Partners
- Paloma Partners Management
- Graham Capital Management
- D.E. Shaw & Co.
- Systematica Investments
Most Innovative Hedge Fund of the Year
- Perceptive Advisors
- Deerfield Management Co.
- ValueAct Capital
- Elliott Management Corp.
- Maverick Capital
- Mudrick Capital Management
