Hedge fund heads pocket record pay in 2009: magazine

[FarCenter]

AFP - The heads of the world's top hedge funds took home record pay checks last year, as the hedge-fund sector rode high on the recovery from the global economic crisis, a magazine ranking showed.

The 25 chief executives of global financial heavyweights pocketed a total of 25.33 billion dollars, doubling their earnings from 2008, according to industry magazine AR Absolute Return+Alpha.

"The world may still be coming out of the Great Recession, but for the richest hedge fund managers, 2009 was the best year ever. And it couldn't have happened without the carnage of 2008," the magazine said.

Appaloosa Management chief David Tepper, who bet on the recovery of banks and the debt of bailed-out US insurer AIG, earned the biggest payouts with four billion dollars in 2009, a record for the sector.

US financier George Soros, the head of Soros Fund Management, took the second spot with 3.3 billion dollars, followed by James Simmons of Renaissance Technologies with 2.5 billion dollars.

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The top 25 hedge fund managers had earned 22.3 billion dollars in 2007 and their earnings fell steeply during the financial crisis in 2008 to 11.6 billion dollars.

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