Investors desert equity hedge funds after years of poor returns
多年回报不佳，投资者抛弃股票对冲基金

One of the oldest and best-known hedge fund strategies has suffered nearly $150bn in client withdrawals over the past five years, as investors tire of their inability to capitalise on bull markets or protect them during downturns.

So-called equity long-short funds, which try to buy stocks likely to do well and bet against names set to perform poorly, have underperformed the US stock market in nine out of the past 10 years, according to Nasdaq eVestment, after failing to adapt to markets largely dominated by central banks.

The poor performance and outflows mark a fall from grace for a strategy known for its star stockpickers such as Tiger Management’s Julian Robertson, GLG’s Pierre Lagrange and Egerton’s John Armitage.

“Ten years ago people used to talk about the great equity stockpickers,” said Donald Pepper, the co-chief executive of hedge fund firm Trium, which manages around $1.7bn.

“You still have some rock stars like [TCI’s] Chris Hohn, but there just aren’t many of him around anymore.”

Pioneered in 1949 by investor Alfred Winslow Jones — seen as the world’s first hedge fund manager — equity long-short funds were designed to “hedge” against overall market fluctuations through their bets on both winning and losing stocks.

The strategy made double-digit returns in almost every year of the 1990s bull market, according to data group HFR, with many funds then profiting by shorting wildly overvalued dotcom groups in the ensuing bust. During the global financial crisis, funds such as Lansdowne Partners made millions betting against doomed UK lender Northern Rock.