Long-short alternative investment funds beat long-only funds in February

Long-short alternative investm­ent funds (AIFs) outperformed long-only funds in February. The former gave an average category return of -1.4 per cent, against the latter's -6.1 per cent, shows the data from PMS Bazaar.

Only two of the 35 long-only funds managed to beat the Nifty50 return of -3.15 per cent during the month, while 10 of the 15 long-short funds beat the benchmark.

Alpha Alternatives’ Alpha Alternatives Multi Strategy Absolute Return Scheme was the best performer in February, with a 0.9 per cent return. Four other long-short funds also ended up with small gains during the month. Assets of the AIF industry stood at Rs 6.1 trillion at the end of the December quarter — a 38 per cent rise YoY. Category III AIFs had raised commitments to the tune of Rs 0.63 trillion as of December 31, 2021. There were commitments of Rs 4.95 trillion for Category II AIFs and Rs 0.5 trillion for Category I.