The first two months of 2011 weren’t great for Asian hedge funds (Japan aside), recording losses in both, but preliminary figures for MarPARA_BREAK_SENTINEL_9f8e7d6c

The first two months of 2011 weren’t great for Asian hedge funds (Japan aside), recording losses in both, but preliminary figures for March show that they finished up 1.69 per cent to leave the region up 0.79 per cent for the year according to Eurekahedge. Asia ex-Japan funds returned 3.81 per cent (0.89 per cent YTD). Japanese funds could potentially still finish in the black despite having to deal with the carnage of last month’s earthquake. Initial figures have them up 0.18 per cent, leaving them at 3.58 per cent YTD. Within Asia ex-Japan, the best performing strategy by a country mile, was event-driven. Early figures show they returned 13.50 per cent; that’s more than the whole of 2010. Equity l/s (3.96 per cent) and CTA/managed futures (2.73 per cent) were the other key performers, with fixed income (1.41 per cent) and multi-strategy (1.26 per cent) faring less well. With over 100 IPOs expected to list in Hong Kong this year, it could well turn out to be the year of the event-driven fund.