The Swiss franc, gold and German bonds are not the only shares that investors are finding refuge in as they live through a tumultuous European debt crisis and listen to dubious macroeconomic data spouted from across the Atlantic.
Hedge funds have also agreed to regain the popularity they once had and regain a portion of the clients and capital that they lost during the Lehman Brothers meltdown and Bernie Madoff scandal.
According to data published by the platform Hedge Fund Research, unregulated investment funds (a more general description of a class of investment vehicles, some of which call themselves hedge funds) ended the second quarter with net subscriptions of 30 billion dollars.
This figure, along with the 32 million dollars that they received from January until March, converted to the first quarter of 2011, which was the best since Q2 of 2007. A year in which the hedge fund industry was booming and not thinking that a few mortgage defaults (later it was discovered that there were more than just a few) would spark an unprecedented global financial crisis for which they were, among others, the main culprits.
Further, contrary to previous years, not just a few large funds are receiving the majority of the new investments, and hedge fund investments have been spread out the most. Only 66% of new money in the industry is going to management firms with equity of more than 5 billion dollars.
Translated and Edited in English by Brandon Dyches and Jose L. De Haro.
