After a challenging year for Asia’s hedge fund community it was great to see so many of you at our annual AsiaHedge Forum at the end of October.

At the opening session I had the privilege of asking a panel of esteemed members of Asia’s Billion Dollar Club for their views on the past 12 months, and what they think lies ahead. Optimism, although tempered, was clear from some of the region’s largest fund managers. The key takeaway being that while macro factors continue to dominate market sentiment, there are plenty of opportunities for good managers to make money.

Our second ever Billion Dollar Club ranking, due to be updated every six months, shows that the fund managers’ optimism is not unfounded. More than $200bn is managed by Asia’s billion-dollar plus hedge funds, up around 5% since the last ranking published in May.

A significant portion of this increase can be attributed to some of the largest fund managers on the list increasing their assets, but perhaps more encouragingly more hedge fund firms have made it into the exclusive club. Membership of the Asia BDC now stands at 59, up from the 53 previously recorded by AsiaHedge.

As attendees of the AsiaHedge Forum heard from industry doyen Ed Rogers, the CEO and chief investment officer of Tokyo-based Rogers Investment, reaching this level is incredibly difficult and becoming even more so.

As a specialist in performing intensive hedge fund due diligence and managing Asian hedge fund strategies for decades, Rogers explained how investor demands on smaller fund managers are increasing, often making it difficult for emerging managers to raise capital.

One key point for fund managers looking to manage in excess of a billion dollars is to take good care of your first investors. Linlin Ma, co-CIO and co-CEO of Prudence Asset Management, which specialises in credit and fixed-income strategies, explained how her firm’s growth from $50m to around $2bn was backed largely by her initial investors. Others added that getting to even $100m requires significant effort and that funds should consider incentivising a strategic partner.

The difficulty in scaling a business in the region is not deterring a laundry list of Asian hedge fund talent with multiple launches being mooted during the month.

Japan has seen a considerable increase in activity. A key driver is the effort of the nation’s political elite. Officials in Tokyo are concerned about its standing in Asia and the political impact of not looking world class, or at least regionally competitive, in all areas of asset management.

Hopefully this signals a return to strength from a country that not too long ago would have been considered the only place in Asia to run a billion-dollar hedge fund.

Billion-dollar perspectives on AsiaHedge.