Alan Howard is back.
The hedge fund managed by the billionaire gained about 36 percent in May, according to a person with knowledge of the matter, burnishing a trading image dulled in recent years by poor returns at his
investment firm. The AH Master Fund, which started in 2017, has now returned about 44 percent this year, the person said.
“I am happy that the loyalty and confidence shown by my investors has been rewarded with a very positive result,” Howard said by email. Investors had pledged $700 million to the fund last October, Bloomberg News reported at the time.
Interest rate increases, geopolitical risks and rising volatility this year have created opportunities for macro traders who had been starved of returns in recent years by quantitative easing. Howard’s gains in May came as political turmoil in Italy sparked a selloff in markets amid concern that the country’s populists could threaten its membership of the euro.
Howard, 54, started the fund to make riskier bets for himself, outside investors and Brevan Howard’s main fund. His gains follow years of mediocre returns at the firm’s flagship hedge fund, which have contributed to firm-wide assets falling about 75 percent from their peak in 2013 to about $8 billion now. The money manager has cut fees and gone back to his previous business model of running several funds in a bid to reduce reliance on one main money pool.
Brevan Howard’s main fund is also making money. The $4.2 billion Master Fund, which is managed by a team of traders,
gained 7.6 percent in May, its best monthly return since 2008, according to a letter to investors seen by Bloomberg News. The return this year is now 8.9 percent.
