The 2008/9 financial year was an extremely difficult period for the alternative investment management industry, with the benchmark HFRI Fund Weighted Composite Index down 15%. While this clearly represents a failure to deliver absolute return, alternative investments nevertheless outperformed equities, which were down nearly 40%.
While Man's results show that we are far from immune to market turbulence, the majority of our investors saw significant outperformance because of our weighting towards managed futures. AHL, our largest fund, was up 8% during the 2008/9 financial year.
Man's expertise lies in investment management, risk management, product structuring, global asset gathering and investor services. We earn fee income linked to our funds under management, and additional fees when these funds outperform.