Friday, November 19, 2004

Hedge Fund management - a sinecure ?

Fiercefinance calls them "Masters of the Universe". The NewYorkMetro likes to call them "filthy stinking rich". Either way - hedge fund managers seem to have replaced investment bankers as the way to riches in the financial industry. As this article in the NewYorkMetro says:

"The bottom guy made $65 million last year, which happens to be more than the combined pay of the CEOs of Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and JPMorgan. 'Never have so few made so much', announced Institutional Investor. Even the manager of a smaller fund, someone like Zach's boss at Pirate, which has $200 million in capital, is in line to make more than the CEO of General Electric, the fourth-largest company in the country."

"Thus, last year alone, something like $40 billion flowed into the hands of hedge-fund managers which is, on average, close to $6 million for every single person who opened a hedge fund.

And that's not the top. The top is staggering. Institutional Investor reported that George Soros, perhaps the most famous hedge-fund manager, earned $750 million last year and that's real money, not stock options."