HEDGE fund managers can take solace that they were by far the highest paid people on Wall Street last year, even though 1994 is shaping up as an unhappy year.

Hedge fund managers yesterday accounted for almost half of 100 executives listed in Financial World magazine's annual survey of Wall Street's biggest earners, led once again by George Soros.

Mr Soros is believed to have been paid a record dollars 1.1bn in 1993 - twice the amount earned by his nearest rival, Julian Robertson of Tiger Management, and twice what Michael Milken made in his best year in junk bonds.

Other well-known New York fund managers - Michael Steinhardt (dollars 475m), Mr Soros's deputy Stanley Druckenmiller (dollars 210m), and Bruce Kovner of Caxton Corp (dollars 200m) - round out the top five.

The minimum earnings to make the list were dollars 10m, against dollars 6m in 1992. The median earner made dollars 20m, double the year before.

Beyond the hedge fund managers - who are unlikely to appear at all when the magazine releases its 1994 survey next summer - the big earners were leveraged buyout specialists such as Paul Kazarian (dollars 148m) and the principals at Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (dollars 56m apiece) and those who run investment partnerships.

While the chief executives of Wall Street's big private firms such as Goldman Sachs did relatively well, their counterparts at big public firms accounted for only five of the 100.