Talk about a disparity of performance.
In just the first quarter of this year, the difference between the top performer and the bottom performer among the six funds that comprise Julian Robertson Jr.’s fund of funds, Tiger Accelerator Partners, was more than 35 percentage points. That’s right, percentage points.
Tiger Ratan Capital Fund, headed by Nehal Chopra, was up 22.9 percent for the period, after gaining 2.5 percent in March.
This compares with a 12.2 percent loss suffered by Teewinot Master Fund I, headed by Michael Moriarty, which lost 2.9 percent in March. This loss, in turn, overshadows that of a fund managed by Cascabel Management and headed by Scott Sinclair and Laurence Chang, which lost 10.2 percent in the first quarter after shedding 5.1 percent in March.
At year-end, Moriarty’s New York–based firm, Teewinot Capital Advisers, managed a total of $146.6 million and New York–based Cascabel Management had just $95.8 million, according to regulatory filings.
Accelerator was launched June 1, 2011. The fund lost about 9.5 percent in its first partial year and gained only about 8 percent in 2012, according to a report obtained by Alpha in 2013.
But in 2013, Accelerator surged 26 percent, with three of the underlying funds posting gains between 38 percent and 47 percent.
It is not known how Accelerator fared in 2014. A spokesman for the fund declined to comment.
However, according to people familiar with the fund, investors in Accelerator have had the ability to deconstruct the portfolio since June 30, 2013. As a result, most investors have opted to withdraw from its poorer-performing funds, making an overall Accelerator performance figure no longer relevant. The source says investors are given their underlying fund’s performance and their participation in the revenue share.
According to a source, Tiger Ratan Capital Fund, which is managed by New York’s Ratan Capital Management, rose 22.34 percent in 2014. Since its inception, Tiger Ratan is up 155 percent. Ratan managed a total of $1.6 billion at the end of 2014, according to a regulatory filing.
Today, Nehal Chopra is not only one of the best-performing hedge fund managers, she is one of the top female hedge fund managers in an industry dominated by men, perhaps more so than any other discipline on Wall Street. Before launching Tiger Ratan, she worked at hedge fund firms Ramius Capital Group and Balyasny Asset Management.
Tiger Eye Master Fund, headed by Benjamin Gambill, was up 4.2 percent in 2014 and 4.4 percent in the first quarter of this year. Since its inception, Tiger Eye is up 63 percent. Gambill’s New York–based firm, Tiger Eye Capital, managed a total of $2 billion at year-end 2014, according to a regulatory filing.
Rounding out first-quarter performance for the funds in Accelerator, James Davidson’s Long Oar Global Investors Master Fund was down 1.5 percent.
Manish Chopra’s Tiger Veda was up 0.1 percent after losing 1.2 percent in March. Manish Chopra left Tiger Management in 2006 to launch his own hedge fund firm. His New York–based Tiger Veda Management ran a total of $436 million at year-end 2014, according to a regulatory filing.
Robertson, whose Tiger Management Corp. once managed as much as $22 billion — an enormous sum at the time — shut down the hedge fund firm in 2000.
