11 September 2006
Bridgewater is fastest
growing asset manager
Bridgewater Associates, a US fixed income and cur-
rency manager, is the fastest growing asset manager
over the past five years, according to research by
Financial News.
The group has boosted its assets by 500% to
$150bn (€118bn) since 2000 and closed its $30bn
hedge fund, Pure Alpha, to new money in the first half
of this year.
P u re Alpha, which started trading in 1989, ranks
as one of the third largest hedge funds in the world,
alongside Goldman Sachs Asset Management and JP
Morgan’s Highbridge Capital Management.
Founder Ray Dalio said Bridgewater had reached
capacity in all its active strategies and closed to new
business. He does not want to distort the propor-
tionality of his bets, particularly in less liquid markets,
such as emerging market debt and index linked
bonds.
GMO, a $121bn US value manager which has
g rown by 362% since 2000, is the second fastest
growing manager over the same period. It lost assets
b e f o rethe stock market collapse in 2001 when some
investors were frustrated by chairman Jere m y
Grantham’s avoidance of growth stocks. Its focus on
No part of this material may be (i) copied, photocopied or duplicated in any form by any means or (ii) redistributed without the prior written consent of Bridgewater
Associates, Inc.®
©Financial News 2006
Financial News, 29 - 33 Scrutton Street, London EC2A 4HU Tel. +44 (0) 20 7426 3333 / Fax. +44 (0) 20 7426 3329
value shares made it one of the best perf o rmers in the
last five years.
Russell, which hired GMO for its first UK equity
fund, has stayed with the group over the past decade.
Steve Wi l t s h i re, European chief investment officer at
Russell said: “It’s a classic example of staying the
course. They stuck to their knitting and we stuck
with them. Pe rf o rmance was poor in the late 1990s
but that befits their style. We too often see pension
funds chasing three-year re c o rds and it rare l y
works.”
Fund managers that suffered negative growth are
Putnam Investments, down 54% since 2000, and
Janus Capital Group, down 39%, according to the
poll. Putnam and Janus have seen high outflows since
they were named in the market timing scandal of
2003. Pe rf o rmance has been poor at Putnam and in
Janus’ fundamental equity business. However, Janus’
quantitative equity manager, Intech, has had posi-
tive inflows and re p resents a third of the gro u p ’ s
assets under management.
Goldman Sachs Asset Management is the fastest
g rowing of the bank-owned asset managers with
growth of 121% to $532bn.