Encyclopedia, a hedge network think tank, mentioned that the 20-year development history of global hedge funds is a fierce and cruel "evolutionary process" of survival of the fittest. During this period, the scenes of tragicomedy left many sighs and meditations for the world.
The momentum of financial liberalization in 1980s and the "financial revolution" in the City of London led to the financial opening in Japan and North America, and the global hedge funds flourished. From 1990 to 2000, more than 3,000 hedge funds appeared in the United States and Britain. But at the same time, it is accompanied by the collapse of a large number of funds.
Due to the rising interest rate, the industry has been adjusted from 199 1 to 1993, and the asset management scale of hedge funds has shrunk for the first time in the history of the industry. 1in the summer of 1995, the legendary currency and commodity speculator Bruce Corvina dissolved his American fund and returned two-thirds of caxton/kloc-0.8 billion USD assets to investors. Caxton was founded in 1983, with an average annual return of at least 30% for most of its existence, but it lost money in 1994 and struggled in 1995. In the following month (10), michael steinhardt's $2.6 billion partnership investment fund hedge fund also closed shockingly. Steinhardt is one of the most successful fund managers in the history of Wall Street. He is famous for his radicalism, short-term style, generosity and adventure, and has made a lot of money for investors. He started to set up an operating fund on 1967, and he is the pioneer of the industry. With an average annual return of more than 30%, his assets under management reached $4.4 billion at the peak.
1In July, 1997, george soros, the founder of Soros Fund Management Company, the world's largest hedge fund, attacked the currencies of Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Hong Kong and other countries and regions, which triggered the Asian financial turmoil, and the scale and speculation of its quantum fund reached its peak, shocking the world. However, in the view of Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir, the hedge fund led by Soros is the chief culprit in the devaluation of Malaysian currency ringgit.
1998 was an unforgettable year for the hedge fund industry. In September of that year, the long-term capital management company with brilliant performance before met with Waterloo. This fund, founded by John Meri meriwether, the former trading director of salomon brothers Company, has a dream portfolio team at 1994. After a series of investment mistakes, faced with financial and credit crisis, on the verge of bankruptcy. Under the arrangement of the Federal Reserve, more than a dozen international financial institutions headed by Merrill Lynch and Morgan invested $3.6 billion to buy 90% of its shares and took over the company. However, the bad luck continues. In addition to the collapse of Long-term Capital Company and Everest Capital, Robertson's fund income was also written off in the fourth quarter, and a fund under Soros lost 18%. The data shows that the average return rate of hedge funds focusing on investing in US stocks in that year was 12.7%, which was far lower than the 28.6% return level of the Standard & Poor's 500 Index.
For hedge funds, the new millennium is not a happy moment. In March, 2000, Tiger Fund, with assets of $6 billion, announced its closure and liquidation. However, Soros's fund failed in its attempt to invest in technology stocks this year with the bursting of the market bubble, and several core figures such as Stanley druckenmiller, the chief investment officer and star manager, also left their jobs one after another. Soros announced that he would withdraw from the global financial market investment. At the same time, his quantum fund and quantum emerging fund will be merged and reorganized into quantum charity funds, adopting conservative and low-risk investment strategies.
Since 2002, driven by investment demand and accompanied by the rebound of the stock market, the assets of hedge funds have increased rapidly. From June 5438 to February 2004, the assets managed by hedge funds reached 1 trillion dollars, setting a new record. In August 2005, Greenwich, Connecticut became the unofficial hedge fund capital, with more than 100 hedge funds and assets under management exceeding 100 billion US dollars, accounting for about one tenth of the global hedge fund assets.
In August 2006, Mother Rock, the largest hedge fund engaged in natural gas futures trading in new york, announced its closure in June and July after suffering huge losses in the natural gas market. In less than a month, AmaranthAdvisors in Connecticut lost $5 billion in a week due to a mistake in natural gas investment, which halved its assets under management, despite having a risk management system that the world is proud of. A few days later, it lost another $654.38 billion, and Amaranth agreed to sell its energy portfolio to JPMorgan Chase and CitadelInvestmentGroup. At the end of the month, Amaranth announced the liquidation after discussing the possibility of asset split and sale with Citigroup, which was the most tragic failure in the history of the industry.
According to the statistics of hedge fund net worth index and rating agencies, the assets of hedge funds increased from $564 billion to $10.5 trillion in the five years from 2000/kloc-0 to 2000, with a five-year growth rate of 200%. By the end of 2006, the assets managed by the top 100 hedge funds had climbed from $720 billion in the previous year to 1 trillion, an astonishing increase of 39%. The expansion of hedge funds has spread all over the world, and 23 of the top 100 companies are located outside the United States.
In the first half of 2007, the average return rate of hedge funds was 7.77%, which was higher than 6% of the Standard & Poor's 500 Index in the same period, but lower than 8.0 1% of MSCI. Behind the rate of return is "Shan Yu is coming" under the subprime mortgage crisis. In June, affected by the subprime mortgage crisis in the United States, two hedge funds under Bear Stearns Asset Management Company got into trouble due to huge losses, and then the two funds declared bankruptcy. At the end of August, Barclays Capital, an investment bank, announced that it would invest $654.38+0.6 billion to rescue CairnCapital, a London hedge fund. In fact, many more hedge funds suffered losses at that time.
In the same period, on August 13, 2007, Goldman Sachs Group said that it, together with some investors, injected about $3 billion into a hedge fund of the company to "save itself". As of the first week of August, 2007, this hedge fund named GlobalEquityOpportunitiesFund lost about $6543.8+$500 million, accounting for about 30%. Before the new capital injection, the net asset value of the fund was $3.6 billion. Saving face is a top priority for Goldman Sachs. Investors involved in this capital injection include C.V. Starr, PerryCapital and American billionaire Eli Broad.
At the beginning of 2008, Bear Stearns, which had been the top five investment banks in the United States for decades, was destroyed. In June, the capital of HBK investment company in the United States, whose assets exceeded $654.38+04 billion in its heyday, was largely withdrawn by investors, and the company's assets shrank to $654.38+05 billion; At that time, another hedge fund giant, the offshore investor fund under Fallon Capital Management Company, was faced with the withdrawal of $654.38+04 billion or more.
In order to reduce the huge losses caused by the subprime mortgage crisis, western speculative forces, including hedge funds, on the one hand introduced sovereign funds from developing countries to pay for the subprime mortgage losses; On the other hand, under the pretext of the impact of the demand growth of developing countries on global commodity prices, the prices of commodities such as oil are hyped up. After Lehman filed for bankruptcy protection, some European hedge funds fell into panic because they could not recover the assets mortgaged to Lehman, prompting them to close their positions. At the same time, other hedge funds in new york and London are now trying to recover collateral from other groups, which has caused more pressure. The ban on short selling forced some trading counters to stop business, which raised concerns about the possible collapse of hedge funds.
Source: Encyclopedia of Hedge Network Think Tank