UCITS hedge funds’ assets under management increased by 20 per cent in 2012, reaching a new high of €140 billion (about $190 billion).

More than half the inflows (56 per cent, €13.2 billion) were allocated to fixed income strategies, followed by macro strategies (24.7 per cent, €5.8 billion).

These are among the findings of the latest quarterly European research figures on the UCITS hedge funds industry from Alix Capital, the Geneva-based provider of the UCITS Alternatives Index family of indices.

The report provides information on 802 single-manager alternative UCITS funds and 80 alternative UCITS fund of funds, as well as UCITS hedge fund platforms analysis. It covers strategy breakdown, fund and advisor location, liquidity, asset flows, assets under management and performance for UCITS single-strategy and fund of hedge funds. 

The three largest single-strategy managers all saw significant increases in UCITS hedge fund AuM in 2012: Standard Life Investments' was up 59.8 per cent to €17.437 billion; GAM’s by 41.2 per cent to €12.535 billion and M&G’s doubled to €10.801 billion.

Three funds achieved performance gains in excess of 30 per cent: the Renaissance Ottoman Fund, the CF Odey UK Absolute Return Fund and the DB Platinum Tosca Mid Cap Equity Fund. Twenty-two returned a performance greater than 20 per cent and 84 achieved a performance above 10 per cent in 2012.

Emerging markets was the best performing strategy with an increase of 5.38 per cent at the end of the year, followed by long/short equity with 4.88 per cent. Commodities has been the worst performer, down 5.44 per cent in 2012.