After years of mediocre returns, 2025 marked a return to form for hedge funds. It was the industry’s strongest year for both performance and net asset inflows since the Global Financial Crisis. Capital returned. Confidence returned. Relevance returned.
But success brings scrutiny...and competition.
We are living through two simultaneous regime shifts. The first is market-driven: higher dispersion, "structurally elevated rates" and geopolitical fragmentation have restored the case for active management. The second is a communication regime shift. The way firms build trust, demonstrate authority and differentiate themselves is being rewritten in real time by AI, generative search optimisation and the rapid expansion of alternatives into the wealth channel.
If 2025 was the year hedge funds proved their performance case, 2026 must be the year they prove their narrative case.
For much of the past decade, communications in hedge funds have been treated primarily as risk management: careful, controlled and reactive. That posture is no longer sufficient. Brand has become a measurable, competitive asset.
Our latest G100 and Alternatives reports - tracking brand awareness, share of voice and media sentiment across the world’s 100 largest asset managers and 50 leading alternatives firms - showed a 25 per cent average decline in brand performance year on year. Media sentiment dropped 31 per cent, largely reflecting heightened scrutiny around sustainability, ESG, digital assets and private markets. Only a quarter of firms registered positive brand momentum.
With brand momentum and awareness increasingly difficult to grow, the imperative to act is clear, The question is how?
Integrated, Not Incremental
The answer is not to abandon traditional media. Far from it. High-quality, earned press remains a powerful validator - particularly with institutional allocators, consultants and regulators. But it must be approached as part of a structured, integrated effort rather than a sporadic pursuit of coverage.
Selective, well-timed engagement - anchored to clearly defined themes - will always carry more weight than opportunistic commentary. Press should amplify a firm’s core narrative, not define it.
At the same time, the balance of power has shifted. Websites, social media, newsletters and video are no longer secondary marketing tools. They are publishing platforms. In an AI-driven information ecosystem, what a firm consistently publishes will increasingly shape how it is described...and discovered.
The most effective managers are moving from defensive posture to controlled offence: defining core messages and cascading them across every channel and stakeholder group.
The playbook pioneered by firms such as Blackstone is instructive. Create a disciplined messaging umbrella anchored around no more than three core themes for the year. Reinforce them across investor communications, talent branding, executive visibility and digital channels. Use press strategically to validate and scale those messages.
The objective is coherence. When LPs, prospective hires and counterparties encounter a firm - whether through earned media, LinkedIn, a conference panel or a website - the same core story should unfold.
Digital-First Is a Structural Advantage
Over the past 18 to 24 months, one thing has become crystal clear: hedge funds need a more visual, digital-first communication strategy.
incremental improvement in four areas can generate disproportionate returns:
- Website clarity and proposition differentiation;
- Search visibility, including AI-driven optimization;
- Consistent social authority around defined themes;
- Measured lead generation and audience analytics.
For alternatives firms, this makes strategic sense. Many face reputational headwinds in mainstream media. Yet internally they are sitting on a goldmine of intellectual capital: market insights, portfolio case studies, talent stories and proprietary research.
The issue is not a lack of substance. It is a lack of structured storytelling.
Owned channels allow firms to tell nuanced, controlled, high-value stories directly to LPs, consultants and, increasingly, private wealth intermediaries. In a world where allocators conduct extensive digital due diligence before any meeting, silence is no longer neutral. It is interpreted.
Focus Is the Asset
For an asset as intangible as brand, clarity is paramount. We think about it in terms of focus.
First, articulate a simple story: where the firm has been, where it is going and why it leads.
Second, serve key audience subsets - LPs, strategic partners, talent - with original, useful content that adds genuine insight.
Third, be ruthless about differentiation. Identify two or three capabilities you want to be defined by and reinforce them consistently over time.
The most effective firms do not try to be everything. Oaktree Capital Management built enduring authority in alternative credit. Robeco established itself as a reference point in sustainability. Blackstone owns the narrative around scaled private markets exposure.
They chose their themes and reiterated them relentlessly.
A Formative Moment
As the industry gathers in Miami next week, there is a clear sense of renewed momentum. But this may also be a formative moment.
Many managers are grappling with declining brand awareness and also find it difficult to articulate purpose. Others, particularly those that have historically maintained a lower external profile, have something close to a blank slate. This provides an opportunity to articulate a firm’s brand position for the next decade.
This is less about size than conviction. Less about volume than clarity.
The firms that win the next cycle will not simply outperform. They will integrate performance, press coverage and digital authority into a coherent whole. They will treat earned media as a strategic amplifier, not a substitute for narrative. They will measure brand with the same rigour as returns. And they will put their chips behind a small number of defining themes.
Performance brought capital back to hedge funds in 2025.
Narrative, discipline and integrated communications will determine who keeps it.