Asia’s heavyweight hedge funds have begun in earnest to soft close for fear of becoming too cumbersome, thus impacting on performance.PARA_BREAK_SENTINEL_9f8e7d6c

Asia’s heavyweight hedge funds have begun in earnest to soft close for fear of becoming too cumbersome, thus impacting on performance. Singapore research outfit Eurekahedge estimates that 2010 saw double the number of closures compared to 2009 reported Reuters this week, all of which suggests that more money will be available for “middies” as HNW individuals and institutional investors regain interest in alternatives. James Fallon (pictured), director, financing sales at BAML, was quoted as saying: “We expect investors will turn their attention to some of the newer and smaller managers that have launched in the last 12-18 months.” This could well see Asia’s overall assets significantly increase from their current USD125billion mark – last year, approximately USD3.4billion in new assets were added to Asian hedgies. The main beneficiaries of these expected capital inflows are those managing USD100million or more in AUM. The bigger these “middies” grow, the more choice pension funds, for example, will have as they typically refuse to offer tickets into sub-USD100million funds. Funds like Hong Kong’s Prime Capital Management and Senrigan Capital are among those to have soft closed.