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Horseman Capital Management
$180 Million
John Horseman rode roughshod over other long-short equity managers in 2008. The founder of nine-year-old London-based Horseman Capital Management generated a 31 percent net return in his largest fund, Horseman Global, cracking the Alpha top-earners list for the first time.
Horseman, who has never had a down year and now manages more than $5 billion, was early to identify the credit crisis: By December 2007 his main fund was 40 percent net short. At the beginning of last year, Horseman expressed continuing worries over broader falling asset values and incomes. He also warned that oil prices — then about $90 a barrel — would come down, banks would have to recapitalize, and consumers would have to take on more debt.
“Our strategy is to remain short and look for opportunities where we believe markets are overlooking the risk of a more prolonged downturn,” he wrote investors at the time. “Banks, financials, consumer-related and resource stocks should provide interesting opportunities in the months ahead.”
This past December, Horseman, who worked as an investment director at London-based Global Asset Management from 1987 to 1999 before leaving to start his eponymous firm, was no more hopeful. “Economic news generally continues to be very weak,” Horseman wrote. “Further market weakness is a real possibility.”
