Women-Run Hedge Funds Fare Crisis Far Better - Building Gender Balanced Business

• Studies have shown that companies run by women or with higher representation of women in upper-management ranks suffered less during the financial crisis. Now the same is proved for hedge funds.

• But this is not just more of the same, in terms of proof. One of the main concerns in the so-called Lehman Sisters argument is that testosterone-fuelled male traders over-leveraged the economy to collapse, but hedge fund management is by definition a risk-intense profession, and strong returns depend on taking dangerous positions.

• Funds run by women fell 9.6% in the 12 months of the crisis from the collapse of Lehman Brothers; those run by men dropped 19%, Hedge Fund Research of Chicago reported.

• Those better — or less-worse — returns burnished women-run funds’ better decade-long results, with gains of more than 9% against the 5.82% for all funds.

• Comparing the results of women-run funds to the total makes particular sense in that so few hedge funds are run by women. Just 3% of the $1.9 trillion in hedge fund assets was controlled by women as of the start of 2008.

• But about half of the Hedge Fund Research funds were run by women, allowing for better comparison. The data was presented at the Women’s Forum for the Economy and Society at Deauville, France.

• The Guardian, in reporting the data, also noted that the US National Council for Research on Women has found that women find it much harder to raise funding for asset management firms, with the average size of a fund run by a woman or a member of a minority group less than a quarter the size of the average one run by a man.

• Linda Basch, head of the Council, said, “This is a time when we need women with their more tempered approach to risk, as well as men.”

The Guardian report