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Top Managers

Big numbers usually decide the battle for bragging rights in the Hedge Fund industry. Those with the most assets, the highest profits or the biggest bonus lay claim to being the best.

Over the past two months, the aTrader.com editorial team has been canvassing the opinions of those in the market to compile a list of contenders. As well as the 100 names featured last year, a further 300 were considered for the ranking.

Assessing the relative influence of an asset management company chief executive, a capital markets banker or a buyout investor is difficult. We gave each candidate a score out of 100. Their influence on each of the debt, equity and mergers and acquisitions markets was scored out of 20 with a further 20 points on offer for leadership within their industry sector and 20 for performance over the past year. A committee of aTrader.com editorial staff voted in the event of a tie. A poll on aTrader.com helped decide the positions of the top five.

There was plenty of change from last year's ranking. This year's MMT100 features 35 new entrants, including two in the top 10. James Simons , from Renaissance Technologies Corp, clings on to the number one spot despite a strong challenge from Stevie Cohen , SAC’ s head trader and founder.

Generally, traders and have risen up the ranking, reflecting a year of robust activity in commodities trading and quantitave techniques. Hedge fund managers fared very well, Paul Tudor Jones , chief executive of Tudor Group, rose 8 places to claim a spot in the top five.

We do not claim the ranking is definitive but it should certainly be thought provoking. Feel free to let us know if you think we have got it wrong - or if you feel you have been overlooked or hard done by.

After a benign few years for capital markets, the next 12 months look set to be much tougher. Those listed here will play a pivotal role in shaping the response of institutions, individuals and markets to changing conditions.

RANK: 1
T. Boone Pickens
CITY: Dallas
FIRM: BP Capital
AGE: 77

"Long crude" doesn't even begin to describe T. Boone Pickens's position. With $5 billion and growing in assets under management, his fund company, BP Capital, is throwing off a small national economy via an unshakable bet that the world's oil supply can't keep up with rising demand.

"Yes, my own money is in there," Pickens told us in January, describing his operation. "That always impresses the other investors."

And what's not to be impressed with? Returns on Pickens's main commodities pool were over 700 percent in 2005. His smaller equity fund was up more than 100 percent. While Pickens may not be heavily involved in trading on a day-to-day basis (the funds overall actually trade very little), his market view -- and oft-televised table thumping -- is what has driven BP's long-term strategy since oil was $20 a barrel.

When he's not out hyping the possibility of triple-digit crude prices or helping sink Democratic presidential hopefuls, Pickens donates money to pet rescue. Recently, he caught some flak when, as part of a tax loophole, he gave $165 million to Oklahoma State and the money ended up in his hedge fund. It's not a bad place to park a pile of dough, of course: Triple-digit returns off a 10-digit asset base that includes an oversized dose of his own money translates into what believes is the largest one-year sum ever earned (in contrast to a Bill Gates–style appreciation in net worth), larger even than Michael Milken's legendary $550 million haul of 1986, adjusted for inflation.

ESTIMATED INCOME: $1.5 BILLION+

RANK: 2
Stevie Cohen
CITY: Stamford, Connecticut
FIRM: SAC Capital Advisors
AGE: 49

The man is called "Stevie," as if he were everybody's favorite soul singer or the neighborhood paperboy, yet he could very well be the richest trader who ever laid down a position. Either way, Cohen is certainly among the most admired living financial figures, second only perhaps to Alan Greenspan (who might end up working for Cohen, at the rate Cohen gobbles up market studs). Says one former SAC staffer: "Stevie has the most clout on the Street, the best contacts, an army of analysts and unlimited capital." A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School who got started in the late 1970s as a proprietary trader at Gruntal & Co., Cohen launched SAC in 1992 with $20 million. He has since amassed more than $7 billion that he personally runs -- not to mention 500 or so traders, analysts and support staff, creating an asset-management empire that spans two management companies (SAC Capital Advisors and SAC Capital Management), three main funds (SAC Capital Associates, SAC Capital International and SAC Global Diversified), two separate offices in Stamford and additional outposts in Manhattan, London and San Francisco. When Cohen comes upon a trader with exceptional skills, he'll seed him in-house -- or help put him in business on his own.

The SAC family had another impressive year in 2005 -- performance, for the most part, was 20 percent–plus, as it has been, amazingly, just about every year since Cohen began. With his incentive fee of up to 50 percent of total profits (though his newest fund, the SAC Multi-Strategy, is said to be 3-and-35, and we hear the rest of his vehicles going forward will follow suit), perhaps only a federal mint prints more money year in, year out than Cohen. Had it not been for an anomalous rough patch this past October (his only down month), his epic compensation amount might have been even greater. We figure the SAC empire took in revenues of at least $3 billion last year -- and if Cohen, conservatively, took one-third...

ESTIMATED INCOME: $1 BILLION+

RANK: 3
James Simons
CITY: East Setauket, New York
FIRM: Renaissance Technologies Corp.
AGE: 67

Jim Simons is a Euclid for our times: He has a Ph.D. in math from Berkeley, has won the prestigious Veblen Prize in geometry, taught at MIT and founded Math for America. Well, here are some numbers: $6 billion, as in Simon's assets under management at year end. Or how about 5-and-44, his notoriously stiff fee arrangement? Then, of course, there's $100 billion, the lofty target Simons has set for a net-long vehicle his firm recently started. Finally, there's the 28 percent return produced by his Medallion fund, which employs scientific models to predict price movements in commodities, currencies and equities.

"Certain price patterns are non-random," the former code-breaker cryptically told The New York Times in a rare interview last November. He could be on to something: After all, Medallion has averaged more than 30 percent, net of fees, every year over the past decade and a half -- or three times as much as the S&P 500 index over the same period.

Simons's hundreds of millions of dollars in charitable donations support everything from autism research to augmenting inner-city math teachers' salaries to atom-smashing Big Bang replication experiments at the Brookhaven National Lab.

ESTIMATED INCOME: $900 MILLION – $1 BILLION

RANK: 4
Paul Tudor Jones
CITY: Greenwich, Connecticut
FIRM: Tudor Investment Corp.
AGE: 51

As the long, hot summer of 2005 wore on, the flagship fund that anchors Paul Tudor Jones's roughly $14 billion hedge-fund empire was hardly sizzling. Reports were surfacing that like a lot of funds, it had suffered losses in May and -- gasp! -- was actually down 2 percent at mid-year. But never bet against a master. Jones staged a comeback, all right: His flagship fund (with assets of $2 billion) finished the year up roughly 14 percent, an improvement over the 12 percent return registered a year earlier.

Much of this commodities superstar's personal earnings have been plowed back into his funds over the years; thus it's astounding to speculate what he might actually be taking home. We attempted to err on the conservative side, because Jones has a reputation for paying his people extremely well. But, based on what we believe is at least a sizable personal stake, Jones's 2005 take had to be among his most enormous yet -- which is why he was able to do such things as back Harvey and Bob Weinstein's new media group, swap thousands of acres of pristine Colorado land with the federal government and help bankroll construction of a new 15,000-seat arena for the University of Virginia, his alma mater. It'll be called John Paul Jones Arena -- named after Jones's father, by the way, not the Revolutionary War naval hero.

ESTIMATED INCOME: $800 – $900 MILLION

RANK: 5 (TIED)
Stephen Feinberg
CITY: New York
FIRM: Cerberus Capital Management
AGE: 46

Known as the king of the vultures, Cerberus has some $16 billion in assets -- almost double its 2003 figure. Feinberg, who began at Drexel, personally runs around $4 billion, a portfolio that logged a 15 percent return after fees. He began in 1992 with just $10 million. Among some of his investors, according to media reports, have been Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and hedge-fund pioneer Michael Steinhardt. When the buyout world meets the hedge-fund world, a three-headed beast of giant deals, controversy and hefty returns usually emerges.

ESTIMATED INCOME: $500 - $600 MILLION

RANK: 5 (TIED)
Bruce Kovner
CITY: New York
FIRM: Caxton Associates
AGE: 61

Bruce Kovner's roughly $7 billion flagship fund once again generated high-single-digit returns last year, which is starting to become a trend for the once unstoppable commodities/macro titan. Nevertheless, his Caxton Global Investments still generated some staggering absolute returns -- at least $500 million. Next, take into account his other funds, some of which had pretty good years (the $350 million Caxton Alpha Equity, which Kovner comanages, for example, completed its first full year up 15 percent). Finally, consider that a lot of Kovner's own money is in the fund, and even by neo-conservative estimates it's clear the man is breathing some rarefied air.

Chairman of the board at the Juilliard School of Music -- he recently gave it one of the world's greatest music-manuscript collections -- he reportedly installed a soundproof music room in his Upper East Side townhouse so he could pound on a Steinway grand piano at night and not bother the neighbors. A staunch Republican, chairman of the American Enterprise Institute and backer, with Michael Steinhardt, of the New York Sun newspaper, Kovner has come a long way from trading soybean futures in his own account.

ESTIMATED INCOME: $500 – $600 MILLION

RANK: 5 (TIED)
Eddie Lampert
CITY: Greenwich, Connecticut
FIRM: ESL Investments
AGE: 43

Three years after a terrifying kidnapping and fresh off his Kmart coup, Lampert has the investment world at his command and some $15 billion under management. A value investor in the mold of Warren Buffett, he didn't have a 300 percent return on his Kmart position like last year; two of his two big long-term plays, Sears and AutoNation, were each up around 15 percent -- still not bad compared to the low-single-digit U.S. equity benchmarks. The man Richard Rainwater recently called "the greatest investor of his generation" is sitting on a mountain of assets, half of it locked up in Sears. Lampert's captors, by the way, are now locked up in prison.

ESTIMATED INCOME: $500 – $600 MILLION

RANK: 8
David Shaw
CITY: New York
FIRM: D.E. Shaw & Co.
AGE: 55

Now one of the biggest hedge funds on the planet, D.E. Shaw, with assets of around $20 billion, used its quantitative approach to churn out returns of roughly 20 percent in 2005. With 3-and-30 fees, this revenue stream boggles the mind. It doesn't all go to chairman Shaw, but enough does to put him in elite company. In the months ahead, we expect Shaw will be grappling with the tricky task of meeting regulatory obligations while keeping his computer-driven statistical arbitrage techniques from falling into the wrong hands.

ESTIMATED INCOME: $400 – $500 MILLION

RANK: 9
Jeffrey Gendell
CITY: Greenwich, Connecticut
FIRM: Tontine Partners
AGE: 46

It was yet another banner year for Gendell's enormous operation, which has been smoking the competition with a string of 100 percent–plus returns based on an activist strategy targeting industrials. When Tontine increased its stake in homebuilder Beazer Homes USA to 10 percent, Gendell demanded that management begin a share repurchase, which spurred a share-price hike of 25 percent within six weeks. On the philanthropic side, Gendell donated more than $2 million to Duke University, his alma mater, to fund two professorships in the new energy-and-environment graduate program there.

ESTIMATED INCOME: $300 – $400 MILLION

RANK: 10 (TIED)
Louis Bacon
CITY: New York
FIRM: Moore Capital Management
AGE: 49

A global macro maestro, Bacon orchestrated some solid performance for his $6 billion flagship Moore Global funds, which returned more than 15 percent last year. Meanwhile, several of his other funds (with some $4 billion run by several other portfolio managers) also fared well. The avid outdoorsman once again bagged quite a bounty.

ESTIMATED INCOME: $300 – $350 MILLION

RANK: 10 (TIED)
Stephen Mandel
CITY: Greenwich, Connecticut
FIRM: Lone Pine Capital
AGE: 50

It was a mondo-boffo year for Mandel, the Tiger Management alum, as his firm has now reached nearly $10 billion. His Lone Cedar fund, with $2 billion, was up over 20 percent. Mandel, who has expanded into long-only funds, is one of several hedgies who have indicated they don't plan to register with the SEC. We're guessing that could mean longer lockups. Clients likely won't mind.

ESTIMATED INCOME: $300 – $350 MILLION

RANK: 12 (TIED)
Larry Robbins
CITY: New York
FIRM: Glenview Capital Management
AGE: 36

A hulking figure nicknamed "L-Train," Robbins is, in the parlance of railroad engineers, one highballing heavy. This former Omega man, who grew up betting horses (his dad worked at Arlington Park racetrack in suburban Chicago), now wagers about $6 billion and fares quite well -- his fund had 15 percent–plus returns in 2005. Robbins is net long, GARP-ish and known for his concentrated bets. His focus is on old-economy stocks, but he's more of a new-economy guy. That's "new economy" as in the small-country-GDP-sized one he has created for himself. ESTIMATED INCOME: $200 – $250 MILLION

RANK: 12 (TIED)
Robert Soros
CITY: New York
FIRM: Soros Fund Management
AGE: 42

His pop is one of the best-known capitalists of all time and an enemy of the right wing, but Robert Soros is getting kind of famous, too. He's having a nice run stewarding the staggeringly large eponymous macro fund company, which includes the roughly $10 billion flagship Quantum Endowment Fund -- further proof, indeed, that the son also rises.

ESTIMATED INCOME: $200 – $250 MILLION

RANK: 14 (TIED)
Israel Englander
CITY: New York
FIRM: Millennium Partners
AGE: 57

Englander has been in the news for many wrong reasons of late, but the worst of his market-timing woes seem to be over. A good portion of Millennium's assets ($6 billion) are his. And while he settled his score with Eliot Spitzer, Englander's troops, a true multi-strategy force, racked up yet another impressive year under his rule.

ESTIMATED INCOME: $150–$200 MILLION

RANK: 14 (TIED)
Richard Perry
CITY: New York
FIRM: Perry Capital
AGE: 51

Even a mediocre year for this giant (his firm runs $11 billion) produces a sweet payday. The long-term activist notched just 5 percent on his flagship $8 billion Perry Partners International fund — too few deals combined with too much capital may have been to blame — after two straight years of 20 percent–plus returns. Hey, there’s always next year. ESTIMATED INCOME: $150–$200 MILLION

RANK: 14 (TIED)
Dave Smith
CITY: Santa Monica, California
FIRM: Coast Asset Management
AGE: 59

He has flown under the radar for many years, but Dave Smith got the attention he deserved recently when he sold one-third of his hedge-fund business to Summit Partners for $127 million. He grabbed 90 percent of that take, and his funds control $5 billion, so it's safe to say the former Oppenheimer bond-arbitrage trader had a year to remember. The odd hedge-fund manager to register long ago with the SEC, Smith prides himself on running a highly ethical shop, and despite his big payout, his friends say he still shows up for work every day ready to leap into battle with the credit markets. "He would rather tackle some complex spread analysis than play golf," says a close associate. "He loves to trade."

ESTIMATED INCOME: $150 – $200 MILLION

RANK: 14 (TIED)
David Tepper
CITY: Chatham, New Jersey
FIRM: Appaloosa Management
AGE: 46

The Pittsburgh-raised, Goldman-groomed high-yield bond trader has once again shown he's in it to win it, giving back money every chance he gets. In order to start 2005 at a lean, mean $2 billion, a good portion of which is his own dough, Tepper spent the latter months of 2004 (while everyone else within spitting distance of a Bloomberg was trying to raise money) giving back $700 million. The move paid off, as Tepper's flagship fund notched a 20 percent return last year. Tepper likes to find companies most everyone else has left for dead; he has a big stake in bankrupt auto-parts maker Delphi at the moment. Steel stocks helped him forge a solid fourth quarter.

ESTIMATED INCOME: $150 – $200 MILLION

RANK: 14 (TIED)
William Von Mueffling
CITY: New York
FIRM: Cantillon Capital Management
AGE: 38

What was Lazard Asset Management thinking when it allowed this star hedge-fund manager to walk at the start of 2003? Von Mueffling (who, in hindsight, should have been named Lazard CIO) would certainly show his ex-bosses, building an asset-management empire in just a few short years. Last year was another impressive showing. Von Mueffling personally manages at least $3 billion of the operateion's roughly $8 billion across a number of vehicles. He enjoyed mostly double-digit returns, with some of his funds returning 20-plus perecent.

ESTIMATED INCOME: $150 - $200 MILLION

RANK: 19 (TIED)
Tim Barakett
CITY: New York
FIRM: Atticus Capital
AGE: 40 Literally dozens of sources we questioned for this list mentioned Barakett, and for good reason: Several of the funds he manages posted stellar returns -- notably the Atticus European Fund, which he comanages with David Slager.

It was up over 60 percent in 2005.

ESTIMATED INCOME: $100 – $150 MILLION

RANK: 19 (TIED)
William Browder
CITY: Moscow
FIRM: Hermitage Capital Management
AGE: 41

In 1996, the late financier Edmond Safra gave a former Salomon Brothers dealmaker named William Browder $25 million to invest in post-Communist Russia. Browder, whose grandfather Earl once fronted the U.S. Communist party, now runs the world's largest Russia-only fund; it returned 82 percent, net of fees, in 2005. The $1 billion–plus-in-assets fund is made up almost entirely of energy stocks, so as Gazprom and Lukoil grew, Browder's wallet followed suit.

ESTIMATED INCOME: $100 – $150 MILLION

RANK: 19 (TIED)
Stanley Druckenmiller
CITY: New York
FIRM: Duquesne Capital
AGE: 52

Druckenmiller, George Soros's former right-hand man, surprised investors late last year by announcing that his flagship Duquesne Fund would be closing in early 2006. Although it finished in positive territory in 2005, it still came in well below its historical average. Rather than release investors from the lockup and allow for a potential rush for the door, Duquesne, which has been returning 100 percent of annual appreciation for years, will simply shut down. Druckenmiller, who has been widely quoted making dire predictions about the U.S. economy, recently received some press attention in Ireland when he filed suit to recover a 10 percent early-withdrawal penalty paid in 2002 to Dermot Desmond's International Investment and Underwriting after the firm fired star portfolio manager David Morrison on harassment grounds.

ESTIMATED INCOME: $100 – $150 MILLION

RANK: 19 (TIED)
Noam Gottesman
CITY: London
FIRM: GLG Partners
AGE: 44

Traders at Gottesman's GLG Partners had a rough year in 2005, but they nonetheless managed to rack up impressive numbers. In addition to the FSA's seven-figure fine against star trader Philippe Jabre for insider trading, the firm is widely believed to have suffered significant drawdown during the second-quarter credit crunch.

When the dust of 2005 finally settled, however, several of the funds at the $11 billion–in-assets firm had finished with chunky double-digit returns, notably cofounder Pierre Lagrange's $1 billion long/short fund, which finished 2005 with returns of almost 30 percent. In a tough year for relative-value funds, Jabre's $4 billion portfolio came in with a very respectable single-digit return. Gottesman, who founded the firm with Lagrange after the two left Goldman Sachs, continues to trade despite the considerable demands of being chief executive.

ESTIMATED INCOME: $100 – $150 MILLION

RANK: 19 (TIED)
Philippe Jabre
CITY: London
FIRM: GLG Partners
AGE: 45

(See Noam Gottesman, above)

ESTIMATED INCOME: $100–$150 MILLION

RANK: 19 (TIED)
Pierre Lagrange
CITY: London
FIRM: GLG Partners
AGE: 44

(See Noam Gottesman, above)

ESTIMATED INCOME: $100 – $150 MILLION

RANK: 19 (TIED)
Daniel Loeb
CITY: New York
FIRM: Third Point Management Co.
AGE: 44

The incorrigibly caustic Loeb had an almost 9-million-share position in International Coal Group before selling in November when its share price reached $13. In January, an explosion in the company's Sago mine in West Virginia took the lives of a dozen men, causing the share price to decline over concerns about legal liabilities and new safety costs. Though a cruel footnote to the Sago tragedy, Loeb's well-timed exit protected his flagship portfolio's gains, which came in with a 19 percent profit for the year.

ESTIMATED INCOME: $100 – $150 MILLION

RANK: 19 (TIED)
Jonathan Lourie
CITY: London
FIRM: Cheyne Capital Management
AGE: 44

With more than $8 billion and growing, this shop, located in the St. James section of London, is a Big Ben–sized ATM for founder Lourie. Cheyne (pronounced like the vice president) has two dozen or so products generating at least $300 million in fee revenue, some of which Lourie shares with president Stuart Fiertz, as well as his sizable staff.

ESTIMATED INCOME: $100 – $150 MILLION

RANK: 19 (TIED)
Raj Rajaratnam
CITY: New York
FIRM: The Galleon Group
AGE: 48

When the Sri Lankan–born Rajaratnam wasn't out raising money to help his homeland, which is still recovering from the devastating aftermath of the December 2004 tsunami, the hedge-fund superstar generated solid returns. His firm has a slew of health-care and tech long/short funds that combine fundamental research and savvy trading to capture both long-term and short-term gains. Rajaratnam personally manages close to $2 billion, and those funds collectively returned 15.6 percent last year. Finally, add in a taste of the Galleon Group's overall action (the firm has $4.2 billion in assets), and Raj is rocking -- as are his main traders.
ESTIMATED INCOME: $100 – $150 MILLION

RANK: 19 (TIED)
Jeffrey Vinik
CITY: Boston
FIRM: Vinik Asset Management AGE: 47

It's safe to say that this former Fidelity standout (best known for his stewardship of the Magellan Fund) is living the dream -- running a billion-dollar-plus fund with mostly his own money and registering returns that are nothing short of awesome (north of 20 percent last year). Which, essentially, means never having to say you're sorry.

ESTIMATED INCOME: $100 – $150 MILLION

RANK: 29 (TIED)
John Arnold
CITY: Houston
FIRM: Centaurus Energy
AGE: 32

Starting four years ago with $8 million of his own dough, John D. Arnold, former star Enron energy trader, has since amassed more than $1 billion in assets. Most of hte 16 other traders at his Centaurus Energy fund operation came from Enron. As ex-Big E biggies Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling finally face the music, Arnold and his boys are making beautiful noise.

ESTIMATED INCOME: $75 - $100 MILLION

RANK: 29 (TIED)
Peter Briger
CITY: New York
FIRM: Fortress Investment Group
AGE: 42

One of many former Goldman Sachs stars to find success after striking out on their own, Briger (pronounced bree-ger) is the brains and brawn behind Fortress's absolute return–bent Drawbridge funds, some of which returned double digits, after fees, last year. The $3 billion Drawbridge Special Opportunities fund was up a respectable 9 percent.

ESTIMATED INCOME: $75 – $100 MILLION

RANK: 29 (TIED)
Richard Chilton
CITY: Stamford, Connecticut
FIRM: Chilton Investment Co.
AGE: 47

A master of the classic long/short style, Chilton is a founding father of the Greenwich hedge-fund scene. Having logged respectable returns on more than $3 billion in assets, Chilton can once again take a spot among the game's elite.

ESTIMATED INCOME: $75 – $100 MILLION

RANK: 29 (TIED)
David Ganek
CITY: Greenwich, Connecticut
FIRM: Level Global Advisors AGE: 43

Ganek launched in the summer of 2003 with a measly quarter-bil; now the long/short equity expert and former SAC trader runs several billion. Just like his old colleague Stevie Cohen, Ganek is an avid art collector. Sources close to his firm say he collected 30 percent of at least $300 million in fee revenue last year.

ESTIMATED INCOME: $75 – $100 MILLION

RANK: 29 (TIED)
Mark Kingdon
CITY: New York
FIRM: Kingdon Capital Management
AGE: 57

The $3 Billion M. Kingdon Offshore fund returned 16 percent in 2005, a bit better than the previous year but well off his 36 percent 2003 figure. One of the industry's true hall of famers, Kingdon is known as a great person to work for, and he pays his people well.

ESTIMATED INCOME: $75 - $100 MILLION

RANK: 29 (TIED)
James Pallota
CITY: Boston
FIRM: Tudor Investment Corp.
AGE: 47

Though his Raptor Global portfolio was up a respectable high-single-digit return, net of fees, for 2005, that figure paled in comparison to its performance the previous two years. Among the portfolio's big winners: a bet on Circuit City, of which the fund owns close to 6 percent of shares outstanding (other big holders include Highfields and D.E. Shaw). A part-owner of the Boston Celtics, Pallota received considerable press attention recently as construction began on his new Weston, Massachusetts, home, which will reportedly include a 7,000-square-foot gymnasium. He has certainly earned the right to blow off a little steam.

ESTIMATED INCOME: $75 – $100 MILLION

RANK: 29 (TIED)
Barry Rosenstein
CITY: San Francisco
FIRM: Jana Partners
AGE: 47

With nearly $4 billion in hedge-fund assets, Jana Partners and Rosenstein, its public face, are an underperforming corporate board's worst nightmare. Among the companies assailed by his public bitch-slaps in 2005 were industrial titan Kerr-McGee, electronic-payment software maker Transaction Systems Architects and coal-mining concern Massey Energy. Meanwhile, during an April conference call in which new Siebel Systems CEO George Shaheen was introduced to investors, Rosenstein didn't mince words: "I just want to point out, George, as you're speaking, the stock has dropped 21 cents. The reaction [to this call] clearly is disappointment." Clients of Jana's were not disappointed by the fund's nearly 12 percent returns, net of fees.

ESTIMATED INCOME: $75 – $100 MILLION

RANK: 29 (TIED)
Peter Thiel
CITY: San Francisco
FIRM: Clarium Capital Management
AGE: 38

Talk about self-confidence -- global-macro-stalwart-come-lately Peter Thiel doesn't even bother charging a fixed management fee. Instead, his Clarium simply takes 25 percent of profits, a cut above the industry norm of 20 percent. We doubt any of his investors are complaining: Since its inception less than three years ago, Clarium is up almost 300 percent cumulatively.

In addition to being a rising trading star, Thiel is a true maverick. He cofounded PayPal, the online bill-paying service, then sold it to eBay four years ago for $1.5 billion. Now he's his own best pay pal; his fund, totaling $1.7 billion, was up 57 percent last year, net of fees.

Thiel made two big bets that paid off last year: long energy, long the dollar. A derivatives trader at Credit Suisse before his PayPal stint, the deep-thinking Thiel is a master of chess and active in the Libertarian party. He indulges his venture-capital side as a backer of tech startups. If only we had been a backer of his fund.

ESTIMATED INCOME: $75–$100 MILLION

RANK: 38 (TIED)
Kaveh Alamouti
CITY: London
FIRM: Moore Capital Management
AGE: 52

Louis Bacon's secret weapon, Alamouti, previously the CEO of Optimum Asset Management, joined Moore Capital a few years ago to help lead its European operation. The skilled arbitrage trader has been on a roll ever since.

ESTIMATED INCOME: $50 – $75 MILLION

RANK: 38 (TIED)
Dwight Anderson
CITY: New York
FIRM: Ospraie Management
AGE: 39

Anderson had a very busy year in 2005. He and his partners were up over 10 percent in their flagship fund; Lehman Brothers bought 20 percent of the firm for a reported $80 million; he launched a new fund, Ospraie Wingspan; and he even got married. As we said, a busy year -- so what else is new? An extensive interview with Anderson starts here.

ESTIMATED INCOME: $50 – $75 MILLION

RANK: 38 (TIED)
Brett Barakett
CITY: New York
FIRM: Tremblant Capital
AGE: 39

With this $3 billion fund up more than 17 percent, Barakett no longer needs to play second fiddle to his big brother, Tim, who helped him get started. In his downtime, he unwinds by playing ice hockey.

ESTIMATED INCOME: $50–$75 MILLION

RANK: 38 (TIED)
Chris Hohn
CITY: London
FIRM: The Children's Investment Fund
AGE: 39

Hohn hates publicity, but he got a ton of it last year when he succeeded in his campaign to derail the Deutsche Börse/London Stock Exchange merger. The camera-shy ex–Perry Capital portfolio manager led TCI to returns over 50 percent for 2005, on total assets rumored to have passed $6 billion by year's end. The hard part about estimating Hohn's take-home is that the fund is structured to feed a charitable entity, the Children's Investment Fund Foundation, which is active in charities working with children in developing nations, particularly those struggling with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa. Jamie Cooper-Hohn, Chris's wife, runs the foundation. The couple reportedly met while attending graduate school at Harvard -- he at the business school and she at the Kennedy School of Government. If our estimate is too high, we'd suspect it is so due to the Hohns' giving nature and not to lack of performance.

ESTIMATED INCOME: $50 – $75 MILLION

RANK: 38 (TIED)
Alan Howard
CITY: London
FIRM: Brevan Howard Asset Management
AGE: 42

During the turbulent late spring last year, hysteria gripped the press as several major hedge funds reported losses, and some even shut down. Howard's $8 billion complex was flat in that period. The rest of the year went well, as the fund rebounded to finish with an 8 percent return. Solid returns on a significant amount of capital make Howard one of the wealthiest men in the City.

ESTIMATED INCOME: $50 – $75 MILLION

RANK: 38 (TIED)
John Kleinheinz
CITY: Fort Worth, Texas
FIRM: Kleinheinz Capital Partners
AGE: 44

On the back of consistently strong performance, this lesser-known global macro maven has built his fund to more than $1.8 billion since launching a decade ago. Kleinheinz really is a rock star -- in the mold of the Who's Keith Moon.

Not only did he pound out a 26 percent return in 2005, but this past September, according to reports in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, he jumped in a photographer's rented SUV and drove it into a country-club pond after a trespassing dispute. Kleinheinz, who bailed out of the driver's seat before the vehicle went into the drink, was arrested and had to post bail; charges were later dismissed.

ESTIMATED INCOME: $50 – $75 MILLION

RANK: 38 (TIED)
Warren Lichtenstein
CITY: New York
FIRM: Steel Partners
AGE: 39

Activist hedge-fund manager Lichtenstein had quite a year in the Far East -- his Japan Strategic Fund returned more than 30 percent. At year's end, the man of Steel had assets of around $1.5 billion. Lichtenstein made headlines earlier this year by joining Carl Icahn in a bid for South Korean tobacco company KT&G that amounted to the biggest hostile-takeover attempt on the Korean peninsula since the 1950 crossing of the thirty-eighth parallel.

ESTIMATED INCOME: $50 – $75 MILLION

RANK: 38 (TIED)
Ed Mule
CITY: Greenwich, Connecticut
FIRM: Silver Point Capital
AGE: 43

Tough customers when it comes to distressed situations, Mule and his partner, Robert O'Shea, have a sterling reputation. Silver Point, which has roughly $5 billion in assets, garnered an 11 percent return last year. The fund was part of a syndicate ready to pounce on Refco, but like the disgraced commodities broker itself, the deal fell apart. Mule is the public face of the operation, while O'Shea sometimes works from an office near his Wyckoff, New Jersey, home. They've made quite a successful pair.

ESTIMATED INCOME: $50 – $75 MILLION

RANK: 38 (TIED)
Michael Novogratz
CITY: New York
FIRM: Fortress Investment Group
AGE: 41

The global macro expert in Fortress's Drawbridge unit, Novogratz once served as a U.S. Army helicopter pilot. He and Peter Briger are flying high these days on another year of solid returns. Novogratz's $1.7 billion Drawbridge Global Macro Fund was up 21 percent in 2005. ESTIMATED INCOME: $50 – $75 MILLION

RANK: 38 (TIED)
Robert O'Shea
CITY: Greenwich, Connecticut
FIRM: Silver Point Capital
AGE: 41

(See Ed Mule, above)

ESTIMATED INCOME: $50 – $75 MILLION

RANK: 38 (TIED)
Jim Pulaski
CITY: Miami
FIRM: Tudor Investment Corp.
AGE: 32

Supposedly a descendant of famed Polish military officer turned American Revolutionary War hero Casimir Pulaski -- he of the famously ugly skyway that spans Newark Bay in New Jersey -- this Tudor energy trader is commander in chief when it comes to natural gas. Sources insist there's no way he mishandled last year's wicked natty volume.

ESTIMATED INCOME: $50 – $75 MILLION

RANK: 38 (TIED)
Art Samberg
CITY: Westport, Connecticut
FIRM: Pequot Capital Management
AGE: 65

With $7 billion under management, much of it his own scratch, Art Samberg is a pioneer of the long/short equity genre and one of the foremost growth investors of his generation. He rode the backs of AOL and Yahoo for most of the '90s, then was one of the few aggressive momentum players to avoid the bursting bubble.

This year, the Pequot founder celebrates 20 years of helming hedge funds, and clients will tell you he's been doing just fine. Annual returns have averaged more than 15 percent in the five years since Samberg split with his former partner Dan Benton; the S&P 500, by contrast, was flat over the same period. Samberg's hiring of John Mack was short-lived, but he did manage to snag Byron Wein, Morgan Stanley's famous senior statesman of strategy, as well as pension-fund rainmaker Rob Burdick of MacKay Shields.

These new faces bolster Pequot's institutional presence. Most of its assets ($5 billion) are invested in long/short equity, with the remainder in credit, but the firm -- which has 15 funds in all, many of which were launched last year -- is looking to roll out even more. Some will be based around Samberg's high-quality fundamental research; others will be more quantitatively driven. ESTIMATED INCOME: $50 – $75 MILLION

RANK: 38 (TIED)
Thomas Steyer
CITY: San Francisco
FIRM: Farallon Capital Management
AGE: 48

Look what Steyer is up against: In late 2004, a group of "socially conscious" undergraduate and graduate students at 15 colleges across the country, including Yale and Stanford, staged protests that they called the "Unfarallon Day of Action," aimed at inducing their universities to remove endowment investments in funds managed by Farallon Capital Management because Farallon invests in companies with business practices the students deemed unethical.

Rather than buckling to such demands, the investment committee at Yale (which at the time had $2 billion invested with Farallon) decided to stay put -- and the university reaped the rewards in 2005. Steyer had another terrific year, posting 15 percent returns.

A Goldman Sachs alum, Steyer is also a managing director of private equity firm Hellman & Friedman, which famously purchased 15 percent of Nasdaq in 2001 and made headlines last April with its acquisition of DoubleClick for $1.1 billion. We mention that in passing, as Steyer's trading accomplishments more than pad his bankroll.

ESTIMATED INCOME: $50 – $75 MILLION

RANK: 51 (TIED)
Richard Chenevix-Trench
CITY: London
FIRM: Sloane Robinson Investment Management
AGE: 47

(See Hugh Sloane, below)