– Matthew Goldstein is a Reuters columnist. The views expressed are his own –
We’re not quite there yet, but hedge fund managers may soon need to start giving away toasters – or perhaps plasma TVs — to woo new investors. Forcing the funds to eat a little humble pie now would benefit hedge fund investors in the long run.
Most hedge funds are off to a decent start this year — the average return to date is 9.43 percent, says Hedge Fund Research. Yet it’s a particularly tough time for launching a new fund. In the first five months of 2009, just 40 new funds have begun reporting performance figures, BarclayHedge reports.
That’s a pittance compared with the same time last year, when 240 new funds started trading.
And investors, who were badly burned last year, seem more interested in pulling money out of hedge funds. This year the pace of redemptions is down only slightly from the fourth-quarter of 2008 — when investors pulled some $165 billion out of hedge funds.





