The LSE Directory / Hedge funds
AQR Capital Management LLC is a quantitative, systematic investment management firm headquartered in Greenwich, Connecticut. It designs and runs data-driven investment strategies, applying academic research in economics and behavioral finance across equities, fixed income, currencies, commodities and multi-asset macro, delivered through hedge funds, long-only strategies, mutual funds and UCITS vehicles for European investors. The firm specialises in factor investing, systematically capturing return premia such as value, momentum, carry and defensive (low-risk) across asset classes rather than relying on discretionary stock-picking. It also runs risk parity strategies that allocate risk rather than capital across equities, bonds, currencies and commodities, and managed futures and trend-following programs. In 2009 AQR became one of the first alternative managers to offer its hedge-fund-style strategies through registered mutual funds, and it later extended this to UCITS funds and tax-aware vehicles aimed at US wealth advisers and their clients, a distribution model that differentiates it from hedge funds serving only institutional limited partners. AQR was founded in January 1998 by Cliff Asness, John Liew, Robert Krail and David Kabiller; Asness, Krail and Liew met while pursuing PhDs at the University of Chicago and worked together at Goldman Sachs's quantitative research group before departing to start the firm. AQR voluntarily registered with the SEC as an investment adviser at inception, among the first hedge fund managers to do so. Beyond its Greenwich headquarters, the firm operates offices in London, Hong Kong, Sydney, Bengaluru, Munich and Dubai, with Sydney, opened in 2005, its first international location. AQR was named a Pensions and Investments Best Place to Work in Money Management for 2025, its ninth consecutive year receiving that recognition. Firm-wide assets fell from a 2017-2018 peak above $220 billion to under $100 billion by late 2023 amid a stretch of underperformance in factor strategies, then recovered sharply: AQR ended 2025 with roughly $189 billion in firm-wide assets, and its hedge fund business alone grew 89 percent, from $57.7 billion to $109.1 billion, over the course of 2025. Trade publication Alternative Fund Insight cited that growth in ranking AQR the world's largest hedge fund manager on its 2026 Power List, attributing the rebound to improved strategy performance and distribution success with tax-aware vehicles popular among US wealth advisers.
