| Philippe Laffont, founder and chief investment officer of Coatue Management LLC (Photo credit: Chris Goodney/Bloomberg). |
Philippe Laffont’s Coatue Management is raising money for a new private equity fund.
It is planning to launch Coatue Kona III and an offshore component, Coatue Kona III Offshore Feeder Fund. Both funds are expected to have their first close in April 2017, according to a regulatory filing.
However, so far the firm has indicated it has not yet raised money for them, according to the filing. The two vehicles will be funded by capital calls. In addition, investors who are invested in Coatue’s hedge funds and elect to invest in the new funds will be able to have their capital contributions withdrawn from their hedge fund accounts.
Coatue is one of several hedge fund firms that operate separate vehicles that invest in private companies. It also manages Coatue Private Fund II and Coatue Private Offshore Feeder Fund II. In addition, it manages hybrid funds as well as long-only funds, alongside its flagship hedge funds. At the end of 2016, the firm managed a total of $10.25 billion, up from $9.7 billion a year ago.
So far this year, Coatue has made at least two private investments. In March, it was one of several investors to participate in the $37 million Series E financing of HotelTonight, a hotel application for smart phones geared toward last-minute bookings.
Also in March, it participated in the $450 million Series D financing of ofo, described as an urban bicycle sharing platform.
Last year it made at least two private investments, according to Crunchbase.com. One of them was in Snap, which went public earlier this year.
As for its hedge funds, in 2016 Coatue was one among a minority of hedge fund firms with roots in Julian Robertson Jr.’s Tiger Management that finished the year in the black. Laffont was an analyst at Tiger Management before founding Coatue in December 1999.
Last year Coatue Qualified Partners gained 4.26 percent. Another Coatue portfolio invested in by an institutional investor returned 1.85 percent.
Coatue also posted double-digit returns in three of the four previous years. In January of this year, Coatue Qualified Partners gained 4.17 percent, according to an investor in the fund.
As we earlier noted, last year Coatue made money even though it owned many of the same high-profile technology and Internet stocks held by Tiger descendants who lost money.
