The Richest Hedge Fund Managers On The 2020 Forbes 400 LIst

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September 8, 2020

It hasn’t been the best year to be a hedge fund manager.

^The 25 members of The Forbes 400 who made their fortunes from hedge funds are worth a combined $185 billion, up $2.8 billion from last year. As a group, that’s saying something, given that hedge funds got hammered in the first half of 2020, losing a record 7.9% on average, according to an analysis by Hedge Fund Research.

The number of hedge funders on The Forbes 400 held steady at 25 this year, but Renaissance Technologies’ Henry Laufer slipped from the rankings, and Pershing Square Capital Management founder and CEO William Ackman returned to the list after a four-year absence. Of those who were on the 2019 list, 11 got richer, 7 are down and 6 are flat. Still, their performance pales in comparison to some tech tycoons who are tens of billions of dollars richer than a year ago–like Jeff Bezos, whose net worth jumped an eye-catching 57% since the 2019 Forbes 400 list.

The biggest gainer of the group is also the youngest hedge fund manager on The Forbes 400. Chase Coleman, the 45-year-old founder of New York-based Tiger Global Management, is worth $6.9 billion, Forbes calculates, $2.4 billion more than a year ago. His firm’s stock portfolio rose more than 36% in the first half of this year thanks in large part to billion-dollar bets on firms booming during the pandemic, like online retailers JD.com, Amazon and Alibaba, as well as tech staples Microsoft and Facebook. Tiger Global ended 2019 managing roughly $40 billion in assets.

The richest hedge fund manager on the list is Jim Simons, a former math professor and the founder of quantitative trading firm Renaissance Technologies. Simons, 82, retired a decade ago but remains a co-chairman at Renaissance, along with his son Nathaniel. His fortune grew an estimated $1.5 billion since last year to $23.5 billion. Renaissance Technologies now manages about $80 billion.

Other fund managers struggled. Ray Dalio’s storied Bridgewater Associates saw assets decline 18% in the first four months of 2020; its flagship funds were down as much as 14% through June despite a broader market recovery. As markets crashed in March, Dalio wrote in a LinkedIn post, “Most recently I made the painful mistake of not having a well-thought-out game plan for dealing with pandemics… The health, economic and market impact of the coronavirus will be much greater than most people are now conveying.” At $16.9 billion, Dalio is down $1.8 billion since last year.

To determine the net worths of hedge fund managers and traders, Forbes examined hedge fund returns as well as the fee and ownership structure of a wide array of money management firms to estimate earnings and cash growth. We also counted other assets owned by hedge fund managers, such as private jets, yachts and art collections.

Here are the 25 richest hedge fund managers in America. Net worths are as of July 24, 2020:

1.

FORBES 400 RANK: #23

NET WORTH: $23.5 billion

2019 NET WORTH: $21.6 billion

The world’s richest hedge fund manager founded Long Island-based Renaissance Technologies in 1982. The quantitative trading firm, dubbed RenTech for short, manages about $80 billion and reportedly had one of its worst months this decade in February, with assets falling 7%. Its public funds have struggled to recover, but RenTech’s black-box Medallion strategy, which is open only to company employees and select relatives, is still nabbing monster gains; it boasts annualized returns of 66% over a 30-year period. Simons, a former code breaker for the U.S. during the Vietnam War who’s retired but remains invested in RenTech funds, is up an estimated $1.5 billion since last year.

2.

FORBES 400 RANK: #29

NET WORTH: $16.9 billion

2019 NET WORTH: $18.7 billion

By April of this year assets at his Bridgewater Associates had fallen to $138 billion, a $30 billion drop from the end of 2019. The turmoil hit internally, too; the world’s largest hedge fund firm laid off dozens of employees in July, just days before a former co-CEO filed a suit alleging that Bridgewater was withholding up to $100 million in deferred compensation because she publicly disclosed a gender discrimination dispute with the firm following her April departure. Bridgewater says it’s working to resolve the matter.

3.

FORBES 400 RANK: #34

NET WORTH: $15 billion

2019 NET WORTH: $12.7 billion

Griffin runs Chicago-based Citadel, the hedge fund firm he founded in 1990 that manages $34 billion in assets. Looking to profit off the market sell-off, and interest rate anomalies specifically, Citadel began raising a new fund in March, the same month Griffin opened an emergency trading floor at the Four Seasons Palm Beach in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Fueled by the recent frenzy in retail stock trading, Griffin’s market-making firm Citadel Securities has exploded in popularity and profitability, executing roughly 40% of all U.S.-listed retail volume this year. Griffin’s Citadel has grown to become the third-most profitable hedge fund of all time through the end of 2019, behind Dalio’s Bridgewater and George Soros’ family office, according to research by investment firm LCH Investments, which invests in other hedge funds.

4.

FORBES 400 RANK: #36

NET WORTH: $14.5 billion

2019 NET WORTH: $13.6 billion

Cohen oversees Point72 Asset Management, a hedge fund firm that reopened to outside investors in 2018 following a two-year ban stemming from insider-trading charges leveled at Cohen’s previous firm. Point72 closed the first half of 2020 on a high note, hitting $17 billion in assets. The firm stopped accepting new money in July, after raising a $10 billion fund, but Cohen’s been cautious. “Markets don’t come back in a straight line; after an earthquake there are tremors,” he said in a late-March memo to employees. “We need to continue to be disciplined… I don’t want us taking undue risks.” In the meantime, Cohen’s bidding high for the New York Mets. He’s already a limited partner in the team but is reportedly looking to buy the whole club for upwards of $2 billion.

Victor J Blue/Bloomberg

5.

FORBES 400 RANK: #39

NET WORTH: $14 billion

2019 NET WORTH: $17.6 billion

Icahn’s investment fund made $1.3 billion in the second quarter from shorting commercial real estate–an industry reeling from the pandemic. But shares of his New York City-based Icahn Enterprises, a sprawling conglomerate with interests in everything from casinos and metals to real estate and food packaging, have fallen more than 20% since January.

6.

FORBES 400 RANK: #41

NET WORTH: $13 billion

2019 NET WORTH: $12 billion

Arguably the greatest hedge fund manager of his generation–scoring annualized returns of 25% in his fund’s first 25 years, Tepper has been steadily returning money to clients in recent years. His Appaloosa Management now manages about $13 billion, down from a peak of $20 billion. In February, Tepper sold his 5% stake in the Pittsburgh Steelers for an undisclosed amount. His fortune is at an all-time high.

7.

FORBES 400 RANK: #56

NET WORTH: $8.6 billion

2019 NET WORTH: $8.6 billion

A celebrated hedge fund tycoon who managed client money from 1969 to 2011, Soros shorted the British pound for a reported $1 billion profit in 1992, becoming known as the man who broke the Bank of England. He has transferred at least $18 billion of his fortune to his Open Society Foundations, a network that funds political organizations and makes grants to social justice causes. Soros, who hasn’t managed money for others since 2011, has a family office fund that invests in a mix of stocks, private equity, commodities and bonds.

8.

FORBES 400 RANK: #74

NET WORTH: $7.2 billion

2019 NET WORTH: $6.6 billion

The son of Polish immigrants, Englander started Millennium Management in 1989 with $35 million from friends and family. Now, the hedge fund firm manages more than $45 billion. Englander’s fund, which returned 9.2% last year and ended the first half of 2020 up about 10%, uses an in-house multi-manager platform, feeding more capital to those who perform well and firing traders who perform poorly.

9.

FORBES 400 RANK: #85

NET WORTH: $6.9 billion

2019 NET WORTH: $4.5 billion

The youngest hedge fund manager on The Forbes 400—he’s 45—has had a stellar year with Tiger Global Management, the investment firm he started in 2000 with $25 million from his former boss, billionaire hedge fund legend Julian Robertson. Tiger Global ended last year managing about $40 billion, and has returned 24% this year through July thanks to its tech-heavy portfolio and first-quarter investments in software firms and work-from-home staples like Zoom Video Technologies, Datadog, Workday and Salesforce.

10.

FORBES 400 RANK: #95

NET WORTH: $6.5 billion

2019 NET WORTH: $6.1 billion

10.

FORBES 400 RANK: #95

NET WORTH: $6.5 billion

2019 NET WORTH: $6.1 billion

Mathematician Overdeck and computer scientist Siegel teamed up to start quant-trading powerhouse Two Sigma Investments in 2001. As of the end of 2019, the secretive firm manages about $66 billion in assets, up from $60 billion at the end of 2018. It also operates a venture capital arm and a market-making business.

10.

FORBES 400 RANK: #95

NET WORTH: $6.5 billion

2019 NET WORTH: $7.3 billion

A former computer science professor at Columbia University, Shaw founded quantitative hedge fund D.E. Shaw in 1988. After markets crashed this year, the firm opened its largest hedge fund to $1 billion in new capital in July, the first time it’s raised money in seven years. D.E. Shaw manages more than $50 billion.

Paul Tudor Jones

Kevin Mazur/Getty Images

13.

FORBES 400 RANK: #108

NET WORTH: $5.8 billion

2019 NET WORTH: $5 billion

14.

FORBES 400 RANK: #123

NET WORTH: $5.3 billion

2019 NET WORTH: $5.3 billion

15.

FORBES 400 RANK: #167

NET WORTH: $4.4 billion

2019 NET WORTH: $4.7 billion

16.

FORBES 400 RANK: #170

NET WORTH: $4.3 billion

2019 NET WORTH: $4.4 billion

17.

FORBES 400 RANK: #177

NET WORTH: $4.2 billion

2019 NET WORTH: $4.2 billion

18.

FORBES 400 RANK: #222

NET WORTH: $3.6 billion

2019 NET WORTH: $3.5 billion

19.

FORBES 400 RANK: #249

NET WORTH: $3.3 billion

2019 NET WORTH: $3.3 billion

20.

FORBES 400 RANK: #260

NET WORTH: $3.2 billion

2019 NET WORTH: $3.2 billion

21.

FORBES 400 RANK: #295

NET WORTH: $2.9 billion

2019 NET WORTH: $2.8 billion

22.

FORBES 400 RANK: #299

NET WORTH: $2.8 billion

2019 NET WORTH: $2.8 billion

23.

FORBES 400 RANK: #339

NET WORTH: $2.5 billion

2019 NET WORTH: $3.2 billion

24.

FORBES 400 RANK: #359

NET WORTH: $2.3 billion

2019 NET WORTH: $3.1 billion

25.

FORBES 400 RANK: #391

NET WORTH: $2.1 billion

2019 NET WORTH: $1.1 billion