Top Hedge Funds in the World

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The top hedge funds in the world, measured by assets under management, include Citadel, Bridgewater Associates, D.E. Shaw, AQR Capital Management, Two Sigma, Renaissance Technologies, Elliott Investment Management, Farallon, Man Group and Ruffer. Each manages tens or hundreds of billions of dollars, mostly for institutions and wealthy individuals. The clearest way to tell them apart is by approach. Citadel, Elliott and Farallon run multistrategy businesses. Renaissance, D.E. Shaw, Two Sigma and AQR are systematic, model-driven firms. Bridgewater centers on global macro, while Man Group and Ruffer are London-based managers. Being on the list tells you how much capital a firm controls. It does not tell you how well its funds perform, and it does not mean you can invest.

What “Top” Measures on a Hedge Fund List

Rankings of the biggest hedge funds usually rely on assets under management (AUM) because it is the one figure large U.S.-registered managers must report publicly. Advisers file Form ADV with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the filing states the firm’s regulatory assets under management.

Size is a useful measure for several reasons:

• It reflects client trust. Pension funds, endowments and sovereign investors put capital only with managers they have vetted.
• It is comparable. Every registered adviser calculates regulatory AUM under the same instructions.
• It is public. Hedge fund returns generally are not, because private funds have no obligation to publish them.

Size also has limits. A firm can be large and have a bad year, and a small fund can post far better percentage returns. Most of the firms below also run several funds with different strategies, so the firm total combines products that behave very differently.

Why Regulatory AUM Can Overstate Investor Capital

Form ADV asks advisers to report regulatory AUM gross, without subtracting money borrowed to buy positions. A leveraged fund therefore reports more assets than its investors actually contributed.

Hypothetical example: a fund takes in $10 billion from investors and borrows another $20 billion to buy securities. Its regulatory AUM is roughly $30 billion, even though investor equity is $10 billion. If you compare two firms, one running heavy leverage and one running little, the leveraged firm can look larger relative to the capital it actually manages for clients.

The Leading Firms by Approach

Multistrategy Firms: Citadel, Elliott and Farallon

Citadel is headquartered in Miami and organizes its investing into five areas: commodities, credit and convertibles, equities, global fixed income and macro, and global quantitative strategies. Kenneth Griffin founded it in 1990 and serves as CEO and co-chief investment officer. It reported $445.96 billion in regulatory AUM on its June 2025 Form ADV, far ahead of the other firms here. That figure is gross of leverage, which a multistrategy firm uses extensively. Citadel the hedge fund is a separate company from Citadel Securities, the market maker Griffin also founded.

Citadel is often called a multi-manager platform. Capital is split among many separate trading teams that each run their own book under central risk limits. Firms such as AQR and Bridgewater instead run firm-wide investment processes.

Elliott Investment Management was founded by Paul Singer in 1977 and is based in Florida. Its range is broad: equities, private equity, private credit, distressed securities, non-distressed debt, real estate and commodities. Elliott is known for taking large positions in companies and pushing for change, and it has bought businesses outright, including the British bookseller Waterstones and, in August 2019, Barnes & Noble. As of June 30, 2025, it reported $76.1 billion in assets under management.

Farallon Capital Management was set up in 1986 by Thomas Steyer with a focus on merger arbitrage, which means trading the gap between a takeover target’s share price and the deal price. It has since added credit, long/short equity, risk arbitrage, real estate and direct investments. It reported $48.27 billion in its July 2025 filing.

Systematic and Quantitative Firms: Renaissance, D.E. Shaw, Two Sigma and AQR

These firms rely on mathematical models, statistics and computing rather than individual stock-picking judgment.

Renaissance Technologies was founded in 1982 by mathematician Jim Simons, who died in May 2024. Peter Brown, also a mathematician, is chief executive. The New York firm uses statistical methods to find signals that drive automated trading across U.S. and international equities, debt, futures, forwards and foreign exchange. It reported $91.96 billion as of March 2025. Its Medallion fund, the source of much of its reputation, has long been closed to outside investors, so the funds outside clients can buy are different products.

D.E. Shaw was founded in New York City in 1988 by David E. Shaw, a former Columbia computer science professor who remains involved in strategic decisions as chief scientist. The firm runs systematic, quant-based strategies alongside discretionary and long-oriented ones. It reported $154.59 billion as of June 2025.

Two Sigma Investments was founded in New York in 2001 by John Overdeck and David Siegel. It builds mathematical strategies from historical price patterns and other data sets. It reported $110.28 billion in its August 2025 filing.

AQR Capital Management, based in Greenwich, Connecticut, uses quantitative research for strategies in equities and alternatives. Cliff Asness founded it with John Liew, Robert Krail and David Kabiller, who had worked together on a hedge fund at Goldman Sachs, and AQR launched its Absolute Return fund in 1998. It reported $160.52 billion as of August 2025. Because AQR sells registered funds alongside private vehicles, some of its strategies are available to investors who could not access a private hedge fund.

Global Macro: Bridgewater Associates

Bridgewater Associates, in Westport, Connecticut, serves pension funds, foreign governments, central banks, university endowments, charitable foundations and other institutions. Ray Dalio started it in 1975, stepped down as chairman in 2021 and now acts as a mentor to the firm. Nir Bar Dea is chief executive. Bridgewater’s investing centers on macroeconomic views across currencies, bonds, equities and commodities. It reported $136.49 billion as of July 2025.

London-Based Managers: Man Group and Ruffer

Man Group has the longest history on the list. It began in 1783 as a sugar cooperage and traded rum, coffee and cocoa before becoming an investment manager. Its U.S. advisory arm reported $43.76 billion as of May 2025, a figure that covers only the entity filing with the SEC, not the whole group.

Ruffer was founded in the United Kingdom in 1994. It runs total return, diversified return and total return international strategies, which aim to preserve capital and grow it in most market conditions rather than beat an index. It reported $24.2 billion in its June 2025 U.S. filing.

Biggest Is Not the Same as Best or Most Profitable

Private funds do not have to publish returns, and any performance figures that become public usually cover one flagship fund, not the firm. A firm-level ranking by AUM therefore says nothing about which manager earned the most for clients.

When comparing managers on anything other than size, three questions matter:

1. Which fund? Returns belong to a specific fund and share class, not the firm.
2. Net or gross? Hedge fund returns before fees can differ sharply from what investors keep after a 20% performance fee.
3. Over what period? A single strong year can reflect one large bet. Multi-year records across different market conditions are more informative.

How Hedge Fund Managers Make Money

The traditional fee model is known as “two and twenty”: an annual management fee of about 2% of assets plus a performance fee of about 20% of profits, often only above a set hurdle. Actual terms vary by firm and fund.

Hypothetical example: a $1 billion fund returns 10% in a year, or $100 million, with no hurdle. The 2% management fee is $20 million and the 20% performance fee is another $20 million, so investors keep $60 million, a 6% net return before other expenses. Real funds may calculate fees quarterly, against a high-water mark, or net of the management fee.

Who Can Invest in These Funds

Most hedge funds accept only accredited investors. Under the SEC definition, an individual qualifies with any one of the following:

• Net worth over $1 million, alone or with a spouse or partner, excluding the primary residence.
• Income over $200,000 individually, or $300,000 jointly, in each of the past two years, with a reasonable expectation of the same this year.
• Certain professional licenses in good standing, such as the Series 7, 65 or 82.

Many large funds go further and accept only “qualified purchasers,” which generally means individuals with at least $5 million in investments. In practice, the firms on this list raise most of their capital from institutions.

Retail investors who want hedge-fund-style strategies usually look at liquid alternatives instead. These are registered mutual funds or ETFs that use techniques such as short selling or hedging. Asset managers including AQR, BlackRock and Fidelity offer such products. They are more regulated and usually cheaper than the private funds these firms run.

FAQs

The Bottom Line

Rankings by assets under management show which managers control the most capital, but they reveal nothing about returns or access. Anyone comparing firms should look at a specific fund's net returns over several years. Most individuals cannot meet the accredited investor or qualified purchaser bars these firms require, so liquid alternatives such as registered mutual funds and ETFs offer a more regulated and usually cheaper route to similar strategies.