Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed from the Nineties into the Noughties, the fund of hedge funds industry emerged from the financial crisis in a bedraggled state. After six years in the doghouse, it is gradually regaining some lustre, but only because it has evolved into a rather different breed.

Before the crisis, funds of hedge funds offered products that pooled a range of hedge funds, attracting investors by the promise of expertise in picking the sub-funds to create portfolios that worked more efficiently.