By dint of savvy acquisitions, JPMorgan is now the world's largest hedge fund manager, as we've noted before. It manages some $42 billion, good enough to put Goldman Sachs in second place. According to Financial News Online, it seems that JPMorgan's purchase of Highbridge Capital Management has been the key to its growth--nothing less than a grand slam purchase. The firm has had a string of hits, including a statistical arbitrage product that has raised $10 billion at the retail level. The firm, led by Jes Staley, is aiming to launch a lot of similar products soon. This seems to suggest that the big premiere banks have a distribution advantage in the industry. If there is indeed retail demand for these kinds of products, getting them in front of high-net-worth families is the key. Of course, performance is also key. You need a product line-up in which the losers can be masked.  

For more:
- here's the Financial News Online item