Today I read the hot-off-the-presses Alpha Magazine ranking of the 100 largest hedge funds. Since hedge funds are a secretive lot, it’s admittedly difficult to come up with good information on them. However, I am hardly a hedge fund industry expert, yet I know of two hedge funds that are well above the size of the #100 fund ($4.8 billion under management; the two funds I have in mind are each over $7 billion and don’t fall into the categories that would lead them to be excluded).
The flaw is that the survey, which purports to be comprehensive, still relies on manager cooperation. I assume the two funds didn’t play ball. But if I, an outsider, know of two omissions, how many others have been missed?
The various Forbes 400 lists are similarly flawed. Again, I don’t specialize in serving highly affluent, yet I have at different points had three individuals as clients who should have been in the Forbes 400 (one domestic, the other two international) at the time I served them, yet none were included. Two of the three had their success catch up with them; the third continues to be absent.
