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That puts the leaders of the hedge fund industry, a secretive and lightly regulated group, well ahead of banking executives, who have been put under greater scrutiny since the 2008 financial crisis. Jamie Dimon, chief executive of the largest bank in the country, JPMorgan Chase, made a relatively measly $25 million last year by comparison. Another frequent target of Wall Street critics, Lloyd Blankfein, the chief executive of Goldman Sachs, made $23 million in 2015.

Meanwhile, the hedge fund industry has doubled in size over the past decade, and executives are bringing in high pay despite weathering a tough year in the financial markets. Dan Loeb, the head of Third Point, a large and well-known hedge fund, said in a letter to investors last month that the industry is in the “first innings of a washout.” Five hedge fund managers made enough to rank among the industry’s highest paid despite losing money in at least one of their funds in 2015, according to Alpha.

The industry is a frequent target of critics who say the world’s wealthiest financiers are benefiting from a broken U.S. tax code. Hedge fund managers’ profits are treated as long-term capital gains, which means they’re taxed at no more than 15 percent. Critics say those earnings should be taxed as ordinary income, or as much as 39.6 percent. Even Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has called for an end to the discrepancy, saying “hedge fund guys are getting away with murder.”

“There’s absolutely no justification for promoting this activity through reduced tax rates,” said Bart Naylor, a financial policy advocate for Public Citizen.

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Just last month, U.S. regulators proposed new rules to overhaul how Wall Street executives are paid, addressing years of complaints that excessive bonuses helped lead to the 2008 financial crisis. But hedge funds, which have grown into a nearly $3 trillion industry, are not expected to be significantly affected by the rules, industry experts have said.

The only woman on Alpha’s list, Leda Braga, founded Systematica Investments in January 2015 and made $60 million last year. Braga ranked 44th among the top 50 hedge fund managers listed in the ranking.

This is Braga’s first time among the highest-paid people in the industry, but she has long been considered the most powerful female hedge fund manager in the world and is known as the “queen of quants” in some circles.

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Leading the list was Kenneth Griffin of Citadel, one of the world’s largest asset managers, which on some days is involved with 10 percent of the stocks trading hands; and James Simons, a former Cold War code breaker, of Renaissance Technologies. Each made $1.7 billion in 2015.