A century ago, Hilaire Belloc wrote about how Roman infrastructure disappeared from Britain; not with an explosion, but with a gradual erosion reflecting neither the will nor knowledge to repair it. The modern hedge fund industry is far removed from those times, but principles, seemingly, are timeless.
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TT International Asset Management Ltd, the hedge fund group founded by former Fidelity investment director Tim Tacchi, published its 2025 results earlier this week. They didn’t seem good: revenue declined by 7% to £32m ($43m), the fourth straight year of decline and less than its 2021 high of £79m ($104m).
The results said that profit also continued to fall, and the firm recorded a £10m ($13m) loss for 2025, up from the £9m ($11m) loss recorded in 2024. In 2021, it recorded a £22m ($30m) profit. Headcount also decreased by 7%, after four years of growth, to 101 people.
The only part of the business seemingly not in decline according to the results is its pay per head, which nudged upwards slightly, from £249k ($329k) to £250k ($331k). Adjusted for inflation, however, that was also in its fourth straight year of decline.
The diminution of everything was related to a fall in assets under management (AuM). TT International said that it ended the year with around $5bn, below its $7bn group-level breakeven value, after a “challenging year for asset gathering”. It’s worth noting that the hedge fund industry as a whole reached an all-time high for AUM in 2025 of around $5tn, according to Hedge Fund Research. “2025 was challenging for all active asset management firms,” TT International said in its filing.
Scenarios for 2026 are unclear. “Under adverse scenarios, the Group maintains surplus capital and meets regulatory requirements,” TT International said, and there “are also available management actions that can be enacted if necessary.” TT International did not respond to a request for comment.
TT International’s owner, which since 2019 has been Japanese bank SMBC, might have a raised eyebrow. It bought a hedge fund with $8.4bn in AuM back then. Since then, aside from AuM, the fund has also lost its longtime CEO, Eric Mackay, to self-employment. At least it still has Tim Tacchi.
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