Dan Loeb continues his money magic as Third Point Ultra jumps up several spots to finish the year with a ballooning 34.47 percent return (31 Dec 2012). The $1.4 billion fund of Third Point LLC, takes the fourth spot in our ranking of the best performing hedge funds of the year, very close to the third winner Tilden Park Offshore Investment Fund, with a 34.89 percent return. In our previous update, Third Point Ultra was up 27.8 percent till Dec 5. The last three weeks of December added a 7 percent return to the coffers, possibly on Loeb’s winning investment in Greek debt, and has put the fund in top five of the year. We have data from the latest Hedge Weekly and have final 2012 Lyxor data from many hedge funds, which we will be posting tomorrow.
Both Third Point’s main funds, Offshore and Ultra went under in 2011, reporting losses of -0.1 percent and -2.2 percent respectively. However they ranked among the top ten funds of 2010, with brilliant returns of 33.75 and 37.91 percent. We hope that this cyclical performance does not hold true for this year, otherwise we may see them in the bottom list of 2013. We mentioned in a previous Best and Worst Performing Hedge Funds list that BTG Pactual’s Distressed Fund’s returns through October 2012 look unbeatable, but the latest numbers have struck out even the little chance of competition that was left.
Take a look at the updated list of Top Ten funds of 2012 followed by the Bottom Five.
Top Ten Hedge Funds
1. BTG Pactual Distressed Fund:
Return: 42.03 percent (Nov 30)
Asset class/Strategy: Distressed Mortgage
Fund AUM: $237 million
Firm and Manager: BTG Pactual Global Asset Management
2. Metacapital Mortgage Opportunities
Return: 37.8% (Oct 31)
Asset class/Strategy: Mortgage-backed arbitrage
Manager: Deepak Narula
Fund AUM: $1.5 billion
Firm: Metacapital Management
3. Tilden Park Offshore Investment Fund
Return: 34.89 percent (Nov 30)
Asset class/Strategy: Credit Long/Short
Manager: Josh Birnbaum
Fund AUM: $891 million
Firm: Tilden Park
4. Third Point Ultra
Return: 34.47 percent (Dec 31)
Asset class/Strategy: Multi Strategy
Manager: Dan Loeb
Fund AUM: $1.39 billion
Firm: Third Point LLC
5. Pine Rive Fixed Income
Return: 33.78 percent (Dec 28)
Asset class/Strategy: Fixed income arbitrage
Manager: Steve Kuhn
Fund AUM: 3.56 billion
Firm: Pine River Capital Management
6. BlackRock, Inc. (NYSE:BLK) Obsidian
Return: 33.41 (Dec 21)
Asset class/Strategy: Fixed Income Arbitrage
Manager: Stuart Spodek
Fund AUM: $710 million
Firm: BlackRock Inc
7A. Brookfield Global Real Estates Securities
Return: 33.31 percent (Nov 30)
Strategy: Equity Long/Short
Managers: Jason Baine and Bernhard Krieg
Fund AUM: $473 million
Firm: Brookfield Investment Management
7B. Odey Absolute Return Fund
Return: 33.3 percent (Nov 30)
Asset class/Strategy: Long/Short Equity
Managers: James Hambury and Jamie Grimston
Fund AUM: $582 million
Firm: Odey Asset Management
8.CQS Directional Opportunities
Return: 32.04 percent (Nov 30)
Strategy: Multistrategy
Manager: Michael Hintze
Fund AUM: $1.49 billion
Firm: CQS
9. Chenavari Toro Capital
Return: 29.64 percent (Nov 30)
Strategy: Distressed Mortgage
Fund AUM: $227 million
Firm and Manager: Chenavari Investment Managers
10. Kinetics Fund
Return: 28.84 percent (Dec 21)
Asset class/Strategy: Long/Short Equity
Manager: Peter B. Doyle
AUM: $40 million
Firm: Horizon Kinetics
Bottom Five Hedge Funds
1. Sprott Offshore Fund
Return: -37.73 percent (Dec 24)
Asset class/Strategy: Long/Short Equity
Manager: Eric Sprott
Firm AUM: $10 billion (July 2011)
Firm: Sprott Asset Management
2A. Conquest Macro Fund Ltd
Return: -33.16 percent (Dec 31)
Asset class/Strategy: Managed Futures
Manager: Marc Malek
AUM: $258 million
Firm: Conquest Capital Group LLC
2B.Paulson Gold Fund Ltd
Return: -33.07 percent (Dec 24)
Asset class/Strategy: Event Driven
Manager: John Paulson
Firm: Paulson & Co Inc
3. RAB Special Situation
Return: -27.52 percent (Nov 30)
Asset class/Strategy: Equity Long/Short
Manager: Phillip Richards
Fund AUM: $150 million
Firm: RAB Capital
4. Island Drive Offshore:
Return: -24.52 percent (Dec 24)
Asset class/Strategy: Equity Long/Short
Manager: John Levin
Firm AUM: $5.1 billion
Firm: Levin Capital
5. Paulson Advantage Plus
Return: -24.36 percent (Nov 30)
Asset class/Strategy: Event Driven
Manager: John Paulson
Fund AUM: $2.48 billion
Firm: Paulson & Co Inc
