Billionaire Paul Singer's Elliott Management, one of the world's most feared investors, is barely beating its competition

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October 25, 2017 3:56 PM

Billionaire Paul Singer's Elliott Management is barely beating its competition this year.

Elliott Management, the $34 billion investment firm led by Paul Singer, is barely beating its competition this year, according to a client update reviewed by Business Insider and industry indices.

Billionaire Paul Singer's Elliott Management, one of Wall Street's most feared activist investors and one of the largest hedge funds around, is barely beating its competition this year.

The Elliott Associates LP fund is up 6.8% after fees and the Elliott International Limited fund is up 6% after fees this year through the third quarter, according to a September 30 client update that was reviewed by Business Insider.

That's compared to the average event-driven hedge fund, which gained 5.9% over the same period, according to data tracker HFR.

Elliott deploys multiple investment strategies, ranging from real estate and private equity to distressed restructuring and activism. Tenacious, litigious and cut-throat are terms often used to describe the iconic firm, which has been involved in some of the biggest plays in recent memory – from the Argentine debt crisis to more recently, Arconic.

The $34 billion firm doesn't benchmark itself to any index, according to client notes previously reviewed by Business Insider. Nonetheless, we can get a sense of how other hedge funds deploying similar strategies have performed this year by looking at industry indices. Here's a roundup from HFR for performance this year through September 30:

Event Driven

To be sure, Elliott has one of the better, and longest running, track records in the industry. The Elliott Associates fund, which launched in February 1977, has posted annualized gains of 13.4%, after fees.

The bulk of Elliott's gains this year have come from its equity oriented strategy (+4.1% gain before fees) and distressed debt (+3.6% before fees), according to the client update.

The firm managed $34.2 billion as of the end of the third quarter – a billion more than it did at mid-year, according to the Absolute Return Billion Dollar Club ranking.

A spokesman for Elliott declined to comment.

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