Introducing AFI $10bn+ Power List 2026

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• Related: AQR nears $200bn after slew of double-digit gains

AQR tops Hedge Fund Power List after 89% AuM growth

Quant behemoth AQR Capital Management ended 2025 as the world’s largest hedge fund manager, crowning a comeback by founder Cliff Asness.

Connecticut-based AQR saw firm-wide AuM mushroom to $189bn last year amid strong performance and inflows. Hedge fund AuM almost doubled, rising 89% from $57.7bn to $109.1bn, placing it top of the annual AFI Power List ranking.

AQR’s assets peaked at $226bn in 2018 before dropping to less than $100bn in the years that followed as quants under-performed and hedge funds struggled to prove their worth in the multi-year tech-driven bull market.

Double-digit gains

The comeback has been underpinned by improved performance across a range of strategies, and distribution success with tax-aware vehicles popular with US wealth advisers and their clients.

Apex, a $6.8bn unit which deploys a multi-strategy approach, has quickly expanded on strong investor demand and made 19.6% last year.

Helix, its alternative trend-following strategy, now runs $5.7bn and made 18.6% last year, while Delphi, a long-short equity strategy, runs $6.8bn and made 16.8% last year.

Adaptive Equities, a $6.3bn market-neutral equity strategy fuelled by machine-learning and which the firm sees as its fullest expression of alpha research and innovation in stock selection, made 24.4% net.

Inflows support rise to summit

Allocators have flocked to different strategies including its tax-aware business, which tripled in size in less than a year, reaching $45bn at the end of September, according to Bloomberg.

Such has been its success with investors that AMG, which owns a minority stake in the firm, highlighted AQR’s impact to its own business on the latest investor update: AQR is expected to contribute more than a fifth of its earnings in 2026.

Asness, an academically engaged quant who studied under Eugene Fama in Chicago, has long been an outspoken founder, willing to criticise “volatility laundering” practices in private markets and hedge fund fees in the part of the industry.

The Power List landmark represents the first time AQR, co-founded by Goldman Sachs Asset Management alum Asness, has taken the hedge fund summit, ahead of long-time leader Bridgewater Associates.

Members can access the full ranking and research pack here.

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