It’s probably the corporate governance

Russia dominates list of leading hedge funds

A reader writes:

You have to love this...I give you the top-performing single strategy hedge funds over the past five years, from Pensions & Investments’ 2006 Databook.

And your point?  Eleven of the 40 funds have the word ‘Russia’ in their names; throw in the one with Ukraine (near enough), and the three ‘Firebirds,’ progeny of Harvey Sawikin’s Firebird Management LLC, and a dozen of the Top 20, 15 of the 40, are up to their eyeballs in the differently-evil empire. And that’s not counting the two Eastern Europes and a few other familiar names that I seem to remember popping off about opportunity east of the Urals. Or, as the reader writes:

Leveraged long Gazprom and Lukoil does a body good.

Before passing you over the jump to see the list, it would be remiss of me not to point out the 28th place finisher, second last among the funds with ‘Russia’ in their names, with just over half the return of the leading fund on the list: Magnum Russia Fund.

Source: P&I 2006 Databook
Top-performing single strategy hedge funds
Ranked by five-year annualized returns

Rank	Fund	Return
1	Tradewinds Russia	68.41
2	Russian Prosperity	63.13
3	Trophy Fund	59.56
4	Russian Opportunities	58.93
5	Firebird Fund	54.94
6	Tradewinds Fund	54.44
7	Kazimir Russia Growth	53.56
8	Prospect Fund	52.94
9	Charlemagne Cap. Russia Value	51.97
10	FMG Russian Federation	51.20
11	Ukraine Value Opp. Fund	50.81
12	Japan Macro Fund	50.16
13	Firebird New Russia Fund	47.62
14	Charlemagne Cap. Russia Fund	47.15
15	Thames River Eastern European	47.03
16	AccessTurkey Fund	46.42
17	Greater Europe Fund Ltd.	46.36
18	Firebird Global Fund	45.97
19	East Capital Russian Fund	45.93
20	Russian Fed First Mercantile	44.66
21	Hermitage Fund	44.20
22	Emerging Value Opp. Fund	43.96
23	Equinox Partners	43.14
24	BP Capital Energy Equity Fund	42.44
25	India Capital Fund	42.37
26	Trapeze Long/Short	42.32
27	Dynamis Energy Fund	39.43
28	Magnum Russia Fund	37.89
29	Front Street Special Opp.	36.87
30	SACC Partners	36.52
31	Gems Russia Fund Class	36.47
32	Griffin E. European Value Fund	36.27
33	Thames River Nevsky	36.21
34	SR Phoenica Fund	36.00
35	Loyola Capital Partners	35.62
36	Optima Opportunity Fund	35.51
37	AES Capital Partners	35.42
38	Blackhorse Emerging Enterprises	35.36
39	Horizon Growth Fund	35.07
40	Pentagram Equity Fund	34.57