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One of the lesser-known but longest-tenured Tiger Cubs is enjoying an especially strong year. All five of the funds managed by Toscafund Asset Management have posted double-digit gains through the first six months of 2017. And most of them have racked up double-digit returns over the most recent three- and five-year periods.
Toscafund, which manages about $3.86 billion, was founded by Martin Hughes in 2000, the year Julian Robertson, Jr. shut down Tiger Management. Hughes had earlier served as chairman of Tiger Management Europe. Perhaps the only Tiger Cub activist, Hughes is known in Britain as The Rottweiler for his aggressive tactics.
The Tosca Opportunity fund, which Hughes personally manages, returned 6.3 percent in the second quarter and 14.3 percent in the first half of the year. It earned gains from Esure, the U.K. auto insurer, and GoCompare, which provides online price comparisons for a variety of U.K. products, after consensus earnings forecasts were sharply lifted for both companies. GoCompare was spun off from Esure last November. The activist fund, which invests in private and public U.K. companies generally with market caps below 2 billion British pounds (nearly $2.6 billion), also enjoyed strong gains from gas engineering company Petrofac, a new holding.
The firm’s best performer this year is the Tosca fund, led by Johnny de la Hey, which surged 19.3 percent in the six months through June. It is a global long-short equity fund with an emphasis on financials, business services, and real estate. It has compounded at 8.1 percent over the past three years and nearly 13 percent over five years. De la Hey, who has been with Tosca since its founding, worked at Tiger Management from 1997 through 2000.
Tosca Micro Cap gained 13.8 percent in the first half of the year. It specializes in U.K.-based microcap stocks, those with less than 250 million British pounds. It has compounded at nearly 13 percent over the most recent three- and five-year periods.
The firm’s Aptus Investment Fund rose 16.4 percent in the first six months of the year. It is a long-only UCITs fund emphasizing financial stocks.
Finally, the Tosca Debt Capital Fund added 13.6 percent in the six months through June. It provides loans to private companies based outside of London from an office in Manchester.
