Funds Hub

Hedge fund firms are once again positioning their businesses for better times ahead — lending further weight to anecdotal evidence that investors are turning back to the industry.

Today brings news that Lansdowne Partners has stopped taking money into its flagship $8 billion UK Equities fund, having recently accepted new cash following $1.2 billion of investor redemptions.

Meanwhile, Polygon Investment Partners — in the process of winding up its multi-strategy fund ($2.5-$3 billion at the end of ’08) — is launching two new funds specializing in European equities and convertible bonds.

And activist Centaurus Capital is returning to event-driven investing with a new fund, despite last year’s disappointment when performance tailed off and its Alpha fund was wound down after investors rejected a restructuring plan.

Last year may have been a chastening time for most hedge funds and investors may have pulled out a net $300 billion between October and June, but the pace of outflows seems to be slowing and some commentators think the last month or two could actually have seen net inflows into the industry.

We’re far from another boom but the prospect of better times ahead doesn’t seem quite so distant any more.