John Griffin, the ultrasecretive founder of New York-based hedge fund firm Blue Ridge Capital and former portfolio manager at Julian Robertson Jr.'s legendary Tiger Management Corp., posted his best return in seven years in 2013.
Griffin is among a number of former Tiger stars to leave the den in the 1990s, including Lone Pine Capital’s Stephen Mandel Jr., Maverick Capital’s Lee Ainslie, Viking Global Investors’ O. Andreas Halvorsen and Coatue Management’s Philippe Laffont.
Like most of these so-called Tiger Cubs, Griffin keeps a very low profile. However, even by those standards, he is much less accessible than some of his former colleagues.
Still, Alpha has learned that Griffin’s flagship long-short equity fund gained between 23 percent and 24 percent last year, according to an investor. The hedge fund manager was up 14 percent in 2012 and posted single-digit gains in each of the two previous years. Back in 2007, he had one of his best years ever, when his long-short hedge fund surged about 65 percent net of fees.
It is not clear which stocks contributed most to Griffin’s gains last year. But if the results and shareholder letters of many of the other managers with ties to Robertson are any indication, chances are Blue Ridge outperformed the S&P 500 with its longs and lost a fair amount on its shorts.
Three of Griffin’s top five long positions at year-end were among the most popular stocks held by other Tiger alumni: Endo Health Solutions, his largest position; Charter Communications, his second-largest holding; and Liberty Global. In addition, two other stocks among his top 11 positions — Priceline.com and Google — also are shared by 20 and 13 other Tiger offspring, respectively. Apple, one of Griffin’s largest new positions in the fourth quarter, also ranks among the 12 most widely held stocks among the Tiger crowd.
Endo Health, which Griffin initially bought in the second quarter, rose nearly 90 percent in the second half of the year alone. It more than doubled from its low in the second quarter, when Blue Ridge started buying. Liberty Global, a top Blue Ridge position all year, surged 40 percent in 2013. Priceline.com, another major holding all year — it was Blue Ridge’s largest position at the end of the third quarter — surged 87 percent.
Google, also a pretty large position for most of the year, rose nearly 60 percent last year. On the other hand, Charter’s stock was flat in the second half of the year, when Blue Ridge built its large position.
Griffin also is one among a number of Tiger alumni who graduated from the University of Virginia, earning a BS in finance from the Charlottesville, Virginia, institution’s McIntire School of Commerce in 1985. Griffin received his MBA in 1990 from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
He began his career as a financial analyst for Morgan Stanley Merchant Banking before heading to Tiger in 1987. He served as president from 1993 to 1996 before leaving to launch Blue Ridge.
