Highlights

• 165 hedge and boutique investment management firms control $208.4 billion, equivalent to 17% of the $1.19 trillion managed by all investment managers in Australia.
• The directory identifies 102 independently-owned boutiques (predominantly long-only, benchmark-unaware strategies) with $165.6 billion in assets under management (AUM), and 63 hedge fund firms with $42.8 billion in AUM.
• The industry eclipses Hong Kong’s $37 billion in hedge fund & long-only absolute return assets, and Singapore’s $20 billion sector.
• More than $60 billion (roughly 30% of sector AUM) is deployed by Australian managers into global markets such as global and Asian equities, global fixed income and global macro.
• NSW based managers have combined AUM of $142.2 billion, while Victoria and Queensland based managers have $38 billion and $24.2 billion respectively.  South Australian and West Australian managers have $3.5 billion and $0.4 billion respectively.

The report’s author and publisher, David Chin, Managing Director of Basis Point Consulting, commented, ‘The Australian hedge and boutique universe is much larger than expected and reflects the diverse investor support for the sector.’

‘Investors in hedge funds are evenly split between four categories: direct high-net-worth investors/principals own funds; offshore investors, Australian institutional investors; and Australian wholesale (dealer groups/planners) investors.  For boutiques, Australian institutions and wholesale investors account for 61% and 29% of assets respectively, reflecting the focus by many boutiques on Australian investment markets.’

Now that the size of the sector has been comprehensively reviewed for the first time, David Chin said, ‘Global investors will be more willing to send due-diligence teams to Australia.  Previously, major European and US investors would visit Asia but did not take the additional trip to Australia in the erroneous belief that the local sector was too small.’

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