Hedge fund sees losses nearly treble

The group, which warned in September that full-year results would miss expectations, posted a pretax loss for the year to end-December of £20.2m, compared with a loss of £6.9m a year ago.

“Our results for the year are not satisfactory,” chief executive Charles Kirwan-Taylor said in the results statement.

Assets under management fell to $1.06bn in December from $1.35bn a year before, after the firm closed five funds and one European bank pulled out money from RAB’s fund of funds.

However, RAB saw “modest” inflows into its remaining funds towards the end of the year.

RAB had managed around $7bn at the end of 2007.

The firm also faces the prospect of losing more clients as a three-year lock-up on its troubled Special Situations fund comes to an end later this year.

This fund bought into Northern Rock before the lender’s collapse and also invested heavily in unlisted securities, many of which proved difficult to sell during the crisis.

RAB’s Prime Europe UCITS fund, the first in a range of European-based portfolios it is launching to try and attract new clients, “had a quiet launch” a month ago, according to Mr Kirwan-Taylor, who declined to say how much it had raised.

RAB’s difficulties in attracting back clients since the crisis chime with the experience of Man Group, which in January posted further net outflows.

The wider industry saw $55bn of net inflows last year, according to Hedge Fund Research.