Goldman Sachs Tops List of Hedge Fund Giants

All of the top 10 hedge funds are U.S.-based, except for two British firms: Barclays Global Investors (number six) and Man Investments (number eight.) The other top-10 U.S. hedge funds are New York-based Och-Ziff Capital Management Group (seventh position with $14.3 billion); Greenwich, Conn.-based Tudor Investment (ninth position with $12.7 billion) and Caxton Associates in New York (ranked number 10 with $12.5 billion.)

Funds have significantly grown in size since 2002 when the list was first compiled. At the time, the top manager was Moore Capital Management with $8 billion in assets. Today, Moore, run by hedge fund luminary Louis Bacon, is only number 18 on the list with $10.2 billion.

The rankings point to another interesting conclusion, and that is that the hedge fund industry is becoming notably, and perhaps dangerously, concentrated. In total, the Hedge Fund 100 firms ran $720 billion in assets as of Dec. 31, a nearly 27% increase from the $568 billion in assets managed by the 100 firms on the 2005 list. The top 100 hedge funds account for nearly two-thirds of the hedge fund's industry's $1.1 trillion assets, but comprise less than 1.25% of the estimated 8,000 to 10,000 hedge fund firms worldwide.