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Hedge fund manager Sir Christopher Hohn beat rivals including Ken Griffin’s Citadel and Izzy Englander’s Millennium to make $18.9bn for investors last year, the largest annual gain recorded by a hedge fund.
Chris Hohn’s fund TCI, which manages $77bn as of last month, made a return of 27 per cent after fees last year as it profited from multibillion-dollar bets on defence and aerospace companies Airbus, Safran and GE Aerospace.
The gains propelled TCI to the best-ever year in dollar terms for any hedge fund, according to an annual survey by Edmond de Rothschild Group. The fund had now generated $68.4bn in cumulative gains for investors after fees since its founding in 2003, making it the fifth most-profitable hedge fund in history, the survey showed.
“Our survey proves that it was possible to make large amounts of money on equities that weren’t in the Magnificent 7. Lone Pine, Viking and TCI had great years,” said Rick Sopher, senior adviser at Edmond de Rothschild.
Hohn has argued that investors overvalue revenue growth in companies while underestimating the forces of competition that can whittle down profits.
He bets on companies that he believes have powerful competitive advantages that rivals will find difficult to overcome. For instance, aerospace companies can sit on valuable intellectual property and infrastructure that shield them from competition.
Hohn has invested in companies that operate natural monopolies such as railway operator Canadian Pacific Kansas City and Spanish airport and toll road operator Ferrovial.
As a single critical decision maker at the top of his fund, Hohn is an increasingly rare figure in an industry that has come to be dominated by hedge funds operating hundreds of autonomous teams of traders across asset classes.
TCI still lags behind some multi-manager hedge fund behemoths, including Citadel, which remains the most profitable hedge fund of all time, according to the rankings, as well as DE Shaw and Millennium. However, TCI is also at least 14 years younger than all of these firms.
TCI’s gains in dollar terms beat Citadel’s previous record of $16bn in 2022, which was partly driven by volatility in commodities markets kicked off by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The second-most profitable hedge fund of 2025 was macro hedge fund Bridgewater, which is currently ranked the third-most profitable hedge fund of all time.
Macro firm Brevan Howard had the least profitable 2025 of the hedge funds in Edmond de Rothschild’s top 20 all-time list, dropping from 15th to 17th place as it generated just $100mn in net gains.
All the hedge funds on the list declined to comment or did not respond to requests for comment.
Data visualisation by Ray Douglas
