The LSE Directory / Hedge funds
Man Group plc is a London-listed alternative investment manager that runs money for institutional and wealth clients across systematic and discretionary hedge fund strategies, credit, equities and multi-asset portfolios. It trades on the London Stock Exchange under the ticker EMG and is headquartered at Riverbank House in London. As of 31 March 2026 it managed $228.7 billion, which makes it the world's largest publicly listed alternative investment manager. Its business is organised around several distinct investment engines, built in-house or acquired and then run as largely autonomous units. Man AHL, set up in 1987 by Michael Adam, David Harding and Martin Lueck and fully absorbed into the group by 1994, is one of the longest-running systematic trend-following CTAs, using computer-driven models to trade price trends across global futures markets. Man GLG, acquired in 2010 for $1.6 billion, supplies discretionary long/short equity and credit strategies. Man Numeric, added in 2014, runs systematic equity strategies, and Man Varagon, a U.S. middle-market private credit manager acquired in 2023 for $183 million, gives the group a direct lending capability alongside its longer-established liquid strategies. This multi-engine structure differentiates Man Group from single-strategy hedge fund managers: it offers institutional clients diversified exposure to trend-following, discretionary equity, quant and private credit from one counterparty, wrapped in listed funds, UCITS vehicles and separately managed accounts. The firm traces its roots to 1783, when James Man founded a sugar cooperage and brokerage in Harp Lane, London, that went on to supply rum to the Royal Navy from 1784 until 1970. The trading business was renamed ED&F Man in 1869 and split from its financial services arm in 2000; Man Group completed its transition into a pure investment manager in 2007 after demerging and separately listing its former brokerage business, MF Global, on the New York Stock Exchange. Institutional investors account for roughly 72 percent of its funds under management, as of 2025. Robyn Grew became chief executive in September 2023, the first woman to lead the firm in its history, succeeding Luke Ellis; Anne Wade has chaired the board since October 2023. Man Group co-founded the Oxford-Man Institute of Quantitative Finance with the University of Oxford in 2007, funding research in machine learning and data-driven trading. In its Q1 2026 trading statement, Man Group reported AUM roughly flat versus the prior quarter as a $6.1 billion single-client redemption from a long-only systematic equity mandate offset $3.1 billion of net investment gains; several of its listed strategies, including AHL Alpha and AHL Dimension, gained more than 5 percent over the quarter amid market volatility linked to geopolitical tensions including the conflict involving Iran.
