It took two years from the launch of Financial News in 1996 for hedge funds to make the front page. This was a fair reflection of how the industry was perceived in the City of London: a marginal sector that made fat profits by doing things few people really understood.

The first front page story, in April 1998, was about funds of funds reducing their investments in George Soros' Quantum funds. Soros was the only hedge fund manager most people had heard of, thanks to his infamous breaking of the Bank of England in 1992.