Study: Hedge Funds More Transparent

A survey of hedge fund databases reveals that the industry is becoming more transparent, as the number of records jumped more than 60% last year.

January 5, 2006

A survey of hedge fund databases reveals that the industry is becoming more transparent, as the number of records jumped more than 60% last year. Still, according to the 2005 SFS Hedge Fund Database Study, conducted by Strategic Financial Solutions and PerTrac Desktop Analytical Platform, though the number of reporting hedge funds has increased "dramatically," one must subscribe to more than one database "to get more complete hedge fund coverage."

In other results, the study found:

There were about 8,100 single-manager hedge funds and an estimated 4,150 funds of hedge funds;
About 2,000 funds stopped reporting to HF databases in 2005;
Of the single manager funds, about 3,550 were onshore funds, while 4,550 were offshore;
An estimated 2,300 single-manager funds were "clones" of another fund, either an offshore version of an onshore fund or having separate currency share classes of a single fund strategy, among other things;
More than 250 single-manager funds have assets of more than $1 billion.