Hedge fund Man Group saw a $5.6bn (£4.2bn) decrease in assets during the first fortnight of April, as market volatility impacted the asset manager's strategies.
Despite assets under management at Man Group increasing from $168.6bn (£127.6bn) to $172.6bn (£130.6bn) in Q1, they sharply declined to $167bn (£126.4bn) within the subsequent two weeks, according to the firm's quarterly trading statement, as reported by .
Over the past week, asset managers across the º£½ÇÊÓƵ have reported significant market losses for Q1 2025, with Polar Capital experiencing losses up to £2.3bn. Analysts had anticipated that firms focusing on alternative assets, designed to avoid correlation with market crashes, would not encounter similar performance issues, making the drop from Man Group unexpected.
Deutsche Bank analyst David McCann had predicted that the firm would only record $1.4bn in new flows for the period, while performance and foreign exchange movements would contribute an additional $2.7bn. Contrarily, investor cash poured into the firm, adding $3.6bn due to the popularity of its credit and convertibles business.
However, the market dip in Q1 caused performance at Man, the world's largest public hedge fund, to plummet, resulting in $1.1bn in investment losses over the quarter.
Man Group's AHL Diversified fund, which utilises trend-following algorithms to attempt to avoid correlation with the broader market, experienced an eight per cent drop in the first quarter of 2025 and has declined by over 18 per cent in the past year.
The performance issues were primarily confined to four of Man Group's strategies: AHL Alpha, AHL Dimension, AHL Evolution, and AHL Diversified, all of which have witnessed significant drops over the past three months and year.
Despite Man Group's performance declines, the net run-rate of its management fees amounted to a staggering $1bn in the year leading up to 14 April, the group reported.
