Assessing the Performance of Funds of Hedge Funds*

B. Dewaelea, H. Pirotteb, N. Tuchschmidc, E. Wallersteind

This version: June 10, 2019

Abstract

This paper studies the performance of a sample of funds of hedge funds (FoHFs) from January
1994 to August 2009. We apply the False Discovery Rate (FDR) technique of Barras, Scaillet
and Wermers (2010) to separate the FoHFs into skilled, zero-alpha and unskilled. We measure
the alpha of the FoHFs using two models – (1) the 8 factors model of Fung and Hsieh (2004) and
…

KEYWORDS: Hedge funds, ….

JEL classification: G11, G15, C14.

1 Introduction
Hedge funds are lightly regulated investment vehicles that invest in a broad range of
assets using a wide variety of investment strategies and usually targeting absolute returns.
The growth of the number of hedge funds and the assets under management (AUM) of the
hedge fund industry over the past two decades has attracted a lot of scholarly attention.
Fung and Hsieh (1997, 2001, 2004), Agarwal and Naik (2004), Capocci et al. (2005), and a
host of other authors have contributed to the study of the performance of hedge funds.

In addition, ….

Moreover, …..

We apply … technique proposed by … to ….

* This research has benefited from the financial support of the BNP Paribas Fortis Chair in Banking of the
Solvay Brussels School and RCSO Management (HES-SO Project No. SAGE – X 24244), and from the data of
Thomson Reuters. We would like to extend our gratitude to BNP Paribas Fortis, RCSO Management, Banque
SYZ. We especially thank Iliya Markov of HEG Genève for his research assistance. We also thank participants to
the Doctoral Workshop in Namur and especially the discussant, Arthur Girard; as well as participants at the
Midwest Finance Association (and especially the discussant G. Larsen), and Eastern Finance Association (and
especially the discussant Z. Shi).
a Centre E. Bernheim, Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management, Université Libre de Bruxelles,

av F.D. Roosevelt 21, CP 145/01, B-1050 Brussels, Belgium. Contact author: bedewael@ulb.ac.be
b Centre E. Bernheim, Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management, Université Libre de Bruxelles,

av F.D. Roosevelt 21, CP 145/01, B-1050 Brussels, Belgium.

c Partner at Tages Capital LLP, London and Haute Ecole de Gestion de Genève, Campus de Battelle,

Bâtiment F, route de Drize 7, CH-1227 Carouge, Switzerland.

d Credit Suisse, Uetlibergstrasse 132, CH-8070 Zürich, Switzerland

1
This paper is organized as follows: section 2 reviews previous works on the performance of
mutual funds, hedge funds and FoHFs and discusses the historical development of
performance assessment tools. Section 3 describes our data set and comments on the most
important biases we have managed to avoid. Section 4 describes the methodology we have
used in assessing the performance of FoHFs with section 5 presenting our results. Section 6
describes the various robustness checks we have performed. Section 7 concludes.

2 Literature Review
For the purpose of assessing managerial skills, investment returns are decomposed into
the part that can be replicated using a standard basket of assets – or a market index – and
the alpha, which is attributed to the fund manager's skills. The modelling of investment
returns dates back to the middle of the twentieth century. Jensen (1968) uses a simple one-
factor asset pricing model, which he uses to regress mutual fund returns on the market
returns. Later, Fama and French (1993) propose a three-factor asset pricing model by taking
into account size and the book-to-market ratio. Carhart (1997) extends their model by
adding a momentum factor.

Using a different approach, Sharpe (1992) applies style analysis to mutual funds' returns
and observes that their strategies have significant exposures to certain equity and fixed ….

3 Data
The data used in this paper …. Table 1 ….

Table 1
Database "cleaning" details
This table shows the total number of hedge funds and the number of FoHFs that remain
after applying cumulatively each treatment to the original data.
Item Sampling Total Funds FoHFs

Table 2 below gives ….

2
 Table 2
Fund strategy statistics
This table shows the number and percentage of hedge funds of different strategy classes. The statistics
below pertain to the sample at step D) of Table 1.
Percentage of the
Strategy Number of funds sample (%)

We should mention here that …

4 Methodology
Since the objective of this paper is to examine if ….

4.1 Comparison to Random Selection

In order to assess ….

4.2 Comparison to Random Selection

In order to assess ….

4.3 False Discovery Rate Overview

In order to verify ….

This is performed through the following semi-parametric methodology:

3
(a) We obtain the …through the following equation:
𝑘
𝑗 𝑗
𝑟𝑖,𝑡 = 𝛼𝑖 + ∑ 𝛽𝑖 𝐹𝑡 + 𝜖𝑖,𝑡 (1)
𝑗=1
𝑗
where 𝑟𝑖,𝑡 is the return of fund i for period t, 𝛼𝑖 is the i fund’s alpha, 𝛽𝑖 is the coefficient
𝑗
for factor j and fund i, 𝐹𝑡 is the value of the j factor for period t (k factors in total), and
𝜖𝑖,𝑡 is the corresponding residual.

(b) As shown by Kosowski et al. (2006), ….

(c) Given that …, i.e.:

𝑘
𝑗 𝑏 𝑗
𝑏
𝑟𝑖,𝑡 = ∑ 𝛽̂𝑖 𝐹𝑡 + 𝜖𝑖,𝑡
̃ (2)
𝑗=1
𝑏
where 𝜖𝑖,𝑡
̃ is chosen among all 𝜖𝑖,𝑡 , from the residuals of equation (1). b ranges from 1 to
1000, for each fund i and period t.

4.4 Asset Pricing Models and Alpha Measurement

As already mentioned, …

5 Results
As explained in the previous section, ….

5.1 Real vs. Artificial FoHFs

FoHFs managers may possess hedge fund picking skills …

4
Figure 1 - Monthly time-series distribution of returns of real and simulated FoHFs
(1/1995-8/2009). 1315 drawings of 15 hedge funds ….

Figure 2 compares cross-sectionally the overall average return performance (over the period
1/1995-8/2009) of the 1’315 real and the 1’315 simulated FoHFs. We can observe that
artificial FoHFs have a higher frequency of extreme returns compared to real FoHFs. The
distribution of the returns of the artificial portfolio also appears to be less peaked than that
of the real portfolio. This figure complements the previous one since it presents a cross-
sectional view of the results. The wider dispersion of artificial FoHFs may nevertheless be
due to the fact that the randomization gives the same priority to funds with a very short
existence than to others. The averaging over small periods for some of them creates more
outliers than what the practice – of investing in funds with a sufficient track-record – would
suggest.

5.2 Alpha Measurement

The results presented in ….

5
 Table 3
Regression Statistics for …

This table shows the regression statistics using an 8-factor regression model composed of the 7 factors from … and an emerging market factor proxied by the MSCI Emerging Markets
Index as later suggested by …. The regression has been applied to all FoHFs with at least 60 months of unsmoothed returns. t-stats and p-values are HAC-QS consistent.

Number of funds: 280 All alpha Negative Alpha Positive Alpha

Coefficient
(mean t-stat p-value
Factor value) (mean) (mean)
Constant
D10Y
DBAA-10Y
SNP-LIB
RUL-SNP
PTFSBD
PTFSFX
PTFSCOM
MSCIEM-LIB
Mean
Value Min Value Max Value
R-Squared
Adjusted R-Squared
Mean MSE

6
5.3 False Discovery Rate
As explained in section 4, …

5.4 Conclusion
Applying the ….

6 Sensitivity Analysis and Robustness Checks

….

7 Conclusion
In this paper we offered ….

7
References
Ackermann, C., R. McEnally and D. Ravenscraft (1999), “The Performance of Hedge Funds: Risk,
Return, and Incentives”, The Journal of Finance, vol n° 12, pp. 1324-1357.

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Appendix 1: Results for/of
…