August proved to be a rough month for many long-short hedge funds with roots to Julian Robertson Jr.’s Tiger Management.
A large number of the funds were down between 4 percent and nearly 7 percent.
Even so, most of them fared better than the major indexes, which fell between 6 percent and 7 percent for the month.
In many cases, August was a one-month setback for what was shaping up to be a very good year for many of the Tiger Cubs, Grandcubs and Seeds.
And in one case, at least, it proved to be a profitable month.
Lee Ainslie III’s long-short fund Maverick International posted a 1.5 percent gain for the month, making him possibly the only profitable descendant of Tiger Management. As a result, the Dallas hedge fund is up 5.5 percent for the quarter and 20.5 percent for the year.
Meanwhile, Maverick Long was only down 1.6 percent for quarter and is up 9.7 percent for the year.
Otherwise, most of the Tiger crowd posted losses in August.
For example, Nehal Chopra’s New York-based Tiger Ratan Capital Fund lost 6.6 percent last month. However, the Tiger Seed is still up 21.6 percent for the year.
Jonathan Auerbach’s New York-based Seed Hound Partners fell 3.5 percent for the month, but is up 14.5 percent for the year.
The three long-short funds managed by Stephen Mandel Jr.’s Greenwich, Connecticut-based Lone Pine Capital lost between 4.2 percent and 4.3 percent last month. As a result, the Tiger Cub’s Lone Cypress is now up 9.29 percent for the year to date, Lone Kauri is up 10.2 percent and Lone Tamarack is up 10.4 percent.
The firm’s long-only fund, Lone Cascade, lost 6.91 percent last month, slashing its gain for the year to 3.16 percent.
The long-short funds of New York-based Tiger Global, meanwhile, lost 4.7 percent last month, and are now back in the red, down 0.3 percent for the year to date.
The Tiger Cub and Seed’s long-only fund lost 7 percent in August.
Conatus Capital Overseas fund, managed by Greenwich, Connecticut–based Conatus Capital Management, shed 2.5 percent in August, trimming its gain for the year to 8.5 percent. Conatus was founded in 2007 by David Stemerman, a Tiger Grandcub who previously worked at Lone Pine Capital.
Meanwhile, Tosca Opportunity, headed by Tiger Cub Martin Hughes, founder of London-based Toscafund Asset Management, was down 4 percent in August, reducing its gain for the year to 11 percent. Its one-month performance is especially skewed because the fund only has a handful of key investments.
We earlier reported that Viking Global Equities, managed by O. Andreas Halvorsen’s Greenwich, Connecticut-based Viking Global Investors, lost only 2.1 percent in August, cutting its gain for the year to 7.4 percent, while the Cub’s Viking Long Fund fell 6.5 percent in August, paring its gain for the year to 4.1 percent.
Other funds slipped into the red altogether in August. For example, Richard Gerson’s New York–based Falcon Edge Capital dropped 4 percent last month and is now down 3 percent for the year. Gerson is a so-called Tiger Grandcub because he was previously a founding executive at John Griffin’s New York–based Blue Ridge Capital.
It is not clear which stocks played the biggest role in each fund’s performance, especially since many of them probably benefited in part from profitable shorts.
