Winton Capital hit by $1bn exit of client funds
ONE of the UK’s biggest hedge funds, Winton Capital, saw investors pull about $1bn (£645m) from its funds last year due to poorer than expected performance.
Winton, a quantitative hedge fund set up by Cambridge physicist David Harding in 1997, saw total assets decline from $29bn to $26bn over 2012, a source said.
Around $2bn of that came from market movements but the rest came from investors such as pension funds pulling funds from its flagship Winton Futures fund.
The outfit’s funds performed badly last year, dropping 3.6 per cent, reversing a good year in 2011 when it increased 6.3 per cent.
A source close to the company said it had seen net inflows in the previous year. “We’re not panicking,” they said.
Harding, who is thought to be the richest hedge fund manager in Britain, set up Winton after leaving AHL, the quantitative strategy fund firm he co-founded.
Winton does a type of strategy known as CTAs, which are very liquid and may have contributed to the outflows.