Winners have been thin on the ground in a year when most investors lost money. But a handful of hedge fund managers and private equity veterans bucked the trend and added yet more zeros to their bank statements.

For others, success has been less tangible. Those fund managers who have posted single-digit positive returns that would have been scoffed at last year are considered geniuses given that the MSCI World index fell 46% in the 11 months to the start of December.