World's biggest hedge funds lose market share - Preqin

LONDON (Reuters) - The world's biggest hedge funds lost market share to smaller rivals over the last year as a result of underperformance, data tracker Preqin said on Friday.

Total assets held by hedge funds with more than $1 billion dropped to 88 percent in the year to end-March 2016 from 92 percent in the year-earlier period, it said in an annual report.

Thirty-seven percent of funds with over $1 billion lost investor money in the first three months of the year, it added, although a small majority of them secured net inflows. Nine percent of the larger firms had no change in assets.

The slide in market share for larger firms did not stop funds from joining the billion-dollar club, with a further 98 reaching the total over the year, it said.

Among those to join were five new hedge fund launches including ex-BlueCrest Capital trader Leda Braga's Systematica Investments.

During the first quarter, hedge funds lost 0.63 percent on average, data from Hedge Fund Research showed.

(Reporting by Maiya Keidan; Editing by Simon Jessop and Tom Heneghan)