The world’s 20 largest hedge funds in 2026
2 NOV, 2026
The world's largest hedge funds have never had more capital to work with. Global hedge fund industry capital ended September 2026 at a record $5.64 trillion, according to HFR – the industry's 16th consecutive quarterly increase.
That capital is concentrating in a small group of firms. Below, we rank the 20 largest hedge fund managers by assets, explain what changed in 2026 and set out what scale means for fund selectors and other institutional allocators, such as the world's largest pension funds.
The world's 20 largest hedge funds by AUM
The ranking uses the annual survey by Pensions & Investments (P&I), which counts discretionary assets managed in hedge fund strategies worldwide. Figures are as of 30 June 2025, the latest edition with asset data in the public domain.
| Rank | Hedge fund manager | Headquarters | Hedge fund AUM ($bn) | 1-year change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bridgewater Associates | Westport, US | 78.0 | –12.9% |
| 2 | Millennium Management | New York, US | 77.5 | +14.2% |
| 3 | Elliott Management | West Palm Beach, US | 76.1 | +9.2% |
| 4 | Citadel | Miami, US | 67.6 | +6.6% |
| 5 | Man Group | London, UK | 66.5 | –14.2% |
| 6 | D.E. Shaw Group | New York, US | 60.4 | +12.5% |
| 7 | AQR Capital Management | Greenwich, US | 51.0 | +31.4% |
| 8 | Two Sigma | New York, US | 50.7 | +14.5% |
| 9 | Goldman Sachs Asset Management | New York, US | 48.0 | +14.3% |
| 10 | Renaissance Technologies | East Setauket, US | 46.0 | +17.3% |
| 11 | Marshall Wace | London, UK | 36.8 | +4.6% |
| 12 | Wellington Management Group | Boston, US | 36.4 | +31.0% |
| 13 | Davidson Kempner Capital Management | New York, US | 35.1 | –5.0% |
| 14 | Capula Investment Management | London, UK | 31.9 | +38.7% |
| 15 | Brevan Howard | St Helier, Jersey | 31.2 | +0.7% |
| 16 | GoldenTree Asset Management | New York, US | 31.0 | +27.0% |
| 17 | PIMCO | Newport Beach, US | 30.1 | +11.3% |
| 18 | BlackRock | New York, US | 28.6 | +14.7% |
| 19 | Ruffer | London, UK | 25.4 | –5.5% |
| 20 | D1 Capital Partners | New York, US | 23.1 | +20.9% |
Just $11.5bn separates the top five, and the top 10 together manage about $622bn in hedge fund assets. The fastest growers were Capula (+38.7%), AQR (+31.4%) and Wellington (+31.0%), while Bridgewater and Man Group both shrank.
2026: multi-strategy firms take the top spots
P&I's 2026 ranking, published in October 2026, places D.E. Shaw and Millennium first and second – the first time in the survey's history that two multi-strategy managers have led the table. The full 2026 asset figures had not been released publicly at the time of writing; we will update this ranking once they are.
The shift reflects where capital is flowing. HFR data show multi-strategy funds reached a record $900bn in the third quarter of 2026. Millennium was reported to manage around $97bn by September 2026, after drawing more than $30bn in investor commitments for a new capital-raising round.
Scale is the platforms' main advantage: it pays for large data and analytics teams, better trading terms and more sophisticated risk management than most single-strategy managers can afford.
The five largest hedge funds, profiled
1. Bridgewater Associates
Founded by Ray Dalio in 1975, Bridgewater runs global macro strategies through its Pure Alpha and All Weather funds. Its assets have fallen as the firm deliberately reduced capacity under CEO Nir Bar Dea, but performance has rebounded: Pure Alpha gained about 33% in 2025 and 18.4% in the first nine months of 2026, according to Reuters and Hedgeweek.
2. Millennium Management
Founded by Israel Englander in 1989, Millennium is the archetypal multi-strategy "pod" platform, allocating capital to hundreds of independent trading teams under centralised risk limits. It has been one of the main beneficiaries of investors' shift towards multi-strategy managers.
3. Elliott Management
Paul Singer's Elliott combines activist equity campaigns with distressed debt, event-driven and multi-strategy investing. It is one of the few top-tier firms built on a predominantly activist model.
4. Citadel
Ken Griffin's Miami-based Citadel runs multi-strategy funds spanning equities, fixed income, commodities and quantitative strategies. It tops LCH Investments' all-time ranking of hedge fund net gains for investors, with about $90.4bn since inception.
5. Man Group
London-listed Man Group is the world's largest publicly traded hedge fund manager and the largest outside the US. Firm-wide assets reached a record $270.9bn at 30 September 2026, though most of that sits in long-only strategies; P&I counts $66.5bn in hedge fund strategies.
Europe's largest hedge funds
Europe's hedge fund industry is concentrated in London. Five European-headquartered managers make the global top 20:
| European rank | Hedge fund manager | Headquarters | Hedge fund AUM ($bn) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Man Group | London | 66.5 |
| 2 | Marshall Wace | London | 36.8 |
| 3 | Capula Investment Management | London | 31.9 |
| 4 | Brevan Howard | St Helier, Jersey | 31.2 |
| 5 | Ruffer | London | 25.4 |
One notable absentee is Chris Hohn's TCI Fund Management, which does not appear in P&I's top 20. With Intelligence's Billion Dollar Club ranked TCI second in Europe at $57.6bn at the end of 2024, behind Man Group. TCI also made $18.9bn for its investors in 2025, the largest single-year gain LCH Investments has recorded.
For the wider picture, see our ranking of Europe's largest asset management companies.
The hedge fund industry in numbers
$5.64tn
Global hedge fund industry capital, end of Q3 2026
16
Consecutive quarterly increases in industry capital
$900bn
Record capital in multi-strategy funds
$124.1bn
Net investor inflows, first nine months of 2026
Source: HFR Global Hedge Fund Industry Report, Q3 2026.
The second quarter of 2026 brought a record $409.3bn increase in industry capital, the largest HFR has ever recorded. The third quarter was tougher, as sharp rate increases and volatility in tech and AI stocks hit equity hedge and event-driven strategies, while macro and systematic funds performed best.
Why hedge fund rankings differ
Hedge fund league tables rarely agree, for three reasons:
- Net vs gross assets. Surveys such as P&I and With Intelligence measure net assets investors have entrusted to hedge fund strategies. Regulatory filings to the SEC report gross assets including leverage, which can be several times larger.
- Firm-wide vs hedge fund assets. Diversified managers such as Goldman Sachs Asset Management, BlackRock, PIMCO and Wellington rank only on their hedge fund sleeves. Man Group's $270.9bn firm-wide total versus $66.5bn in hedge fund strategies shows how wide that gap can be.
- Participation and dates. Surveys rely partly on self-reporting, so some firms are missing, and each ranking uses a different reference date.
What scale means for fund selectors
For allocators – from pension funds to the world's largest family offices – a manager's size is a starting point for due diligence, not a verdict.
The case for the largest managers: institutional-grade risk management and operations, deep research and technology budgets, long track records and the capacity to take large tickets.
The trade-offs: flagship funds are often closed or capacity-constrained, fee structures at multi-strategy platforms can include pass-through expenses on top of performance fees, and crowded positions among the biggest players can unwind quickly – as the losses in AI-exposed tech positions in the third quarter of 2026 showed. Size also does not guarantee returns: Bridgewater shrank in assets even as performance recovered.
Conclusion
The world's largest hedge funds are more tightly clustered than ever, with Bridgewater, Millennium and Elliott separated by just a few billion dollars in the latest full ranking. The 2026 data point to a new order, with multi-strategy platforms led by D.E. Shaw and Millennium overtaking the single-strategy pioneers.
With industry capital at a record $5.64 trillion and new money favouring the biggest firms, concentration looks set to continue. For fund selectors, that makes understanding how each ranking counts assets – and what sits behind the headline number – more important than the position itself.
