Hedge Fund 'Golden Boys' Bet on Bailouts; Win Big

From Agence France Presse:

The world’s top hedge fund managers made hay last year with record pay because their much-maligned sector bet heavily on recovery of the financial sector after it received state aid, a survey showed.

The 25 chief executives of global financial heavyweights pocketed a total of 25.33 billion dollars (18.6 billion euros), doubling their earnings from 2008, according to a ranking by industry magazine AR Absolute Return+Alpha.

“The world may still be coming out of the Great Recession, but for the richest hedge fund managers, 2009 was the best year ever. And it couldn’t have happened without the carnage of 2008,” the magazine said.

Seven hedge fund managers broke the one-billion-dollar mark last year, while the last one on the top-25 list made 350 million dollars.

Appaloosa Management chief David Tepper, who bet on the recovery of banks and the debt of bailed-out US insurer AIG, earned the biggest payouts with four billion dollars in 2009, a record for the sector.

“We bet on the country?s revival,” Tepper told the New York Times, describing his trading technique as a mix of deep analysis and common sense.

“Those who keep their heads while others are panicking usually do well,” he said.

George Soros, the legendary US financier of Hungarian origin who once made a fortune correctly hedging that Britain would leave the European exchange rate mechanism, took the second spot with 3.3 billion dollars.

He was followed by James Simmons of Renaissance Technologies with 2.5 billion dollars.

John Paulson, who held the previous record of 3.7 billion dollars in 2007, was in fourth place last year with 2.4 billion dollars.

Read the whole thing here. For the record, we have no problem with people, even hedge fund managers, making buckets of money. That’s capitalism. But, the increasing intersection of the financial markets and government is troubling. As we all know, George Soros directs rivers of money into leftist advocacy groups, who promote the very bailout programs that supported his financial bets. John Paulson has given millions to the Center for Responsible Lending, who also advocates for these programs. There is an emerging trend of using leftist public policy groups for private profit. We’ll have more to say on this in the coming weeks.