These results underscore a growing tendency for larger institutional investors to gravitate toward larger managers with more institutionalized operations and brand names with a higher level of recognition within the industry.
A perhaps related but inverse phenomenon is evident with respect to high net worth individuals and family offices, which appear more likely to allocate assets with the industry’s smaller managers. 74% of hedge funds with 25 employees or less reported an increase in assets from high net worth individuals, while 65% reported an increase in assets from family offices.
In the middle of the spectrum are the mid-sized players, some of which are caught in a delicate balancing act, large enough to attract institutional money, but perhaps lacking adequate scale to create the type of robust, in-house operational infrastructure many institutional investors want.