Christopher Hansen’s Valiant Capital Management is launching another new fund that will specialize in Indian securities.
The San Francisco–based manager is planning to launch an India-focused long-only fund, according to the firm’s second-quarter letter to clients. “We see this as a great opportunity to compound our capital,” Hansen states in the letter, adding that the debut will be a “soft launch.”
Hansen says the firm plans to offer the fund to current investors “for a small amount of capacity,” citing “the continued inquiries we have received from LPs [limited partners] for a long-only India product.” However, Hansen stresses that the firm has no plans “for any significant outbound marketing or fundraising effort.”
Valiant has long been a big investor in India. We reported last November that the firm was raising money for Valiant JM India Opportunities Master Fund, a new hedge fund designed to invest in stressed and distressed securities in India. The firm was hoping to raise $500 million with a hard cap of $750 million. An initial closing was expected to take place on December 1, according to the fund’s offering document, obtained by Alpha at the time.
It is not clear whether the fund actually got off the ground and if so, how much it raised.
Hansen founded Valiant in August 2008. He is a so-called Tiger Grandcub because he was previously a managing director at Tiger Cub John Griffin’s Blue Ridge Capital.
At the end of the second quarter, India accounted for nearly 31 percent of the firm’s nearly 102 percent long exposure in its hedge fund portfolio, roughly in line with its U.S. exposure. However, net exposure to India in the same portfolio was 22.35 percent — far exceeding any other region — while the U.S. was just 3.47 percent.
What’s more, India-based HDFC Bank, a banking and financial services company, was the third-largest long position in the hedge fund portfolio at the end of the second quarter.
In 2014 the portfolio’s net long exposure to India mostly ranged between 27 percent and 30 percent, according to Valiant documents.
This year, however, Valiant’s India longs have lost more money than any other regional long exposure.
In the first half of the year, the firm’s hedge fund, Valiant Capital Partners, returned nearly 2 percent. However, its liquid portfolio gained only 0.24 percent, while its side pockets — which is how it defines its private investments — were up 8.66 percent.
Valiant is not the only hedge fund, or Tiger-related fund for that matter, to be making a big wager on India.
In the past four years alone, Charles (Chase) Coleman III’s Tiger Global Management has invested a total of $3 billion in India and China, by far the two biggest targets of its large venture capital business.
