Hedge Manager Selection Criteria

I have not been involved in hedge fund manager selection myself, so what I have written here is my understanding.
Hedge funds are often registered in less common places (Cayman, Luxembourg, ..) which allows them to do things that a typical investment trust would not be allowed to do. This might include short selling, and high levels of gearing, and perhaps certain uses of derivatives. They also escape a lot of the disclosure that would be forced on a UK registered company, which means that the manager only shares information that he or she want to share. Likewise performance stats are only forwarded to the performance measurement companies if the manager wants them to be.
This means that selecting a hedge fund manager will be based on the performance of the funds that are disclosed, and there may be more trust involved in terms of accepting the statements from the manager as to what the objectives of the fund are and the controls etc. A traditional equity manager selection group might not feel comfortable selecting a manager on the basis of this information, and porefer to use a specialist, or a fund of funds.