Tiger Global’s hedge fund posts 15% monthly drop, pushing year’s loss to 44%

TIGER Global Management’s performance problems are mounting, with Chase Coleman’s firm losing about US$16 billion during the first 4 months of the year.

His main hedge posted a 15 per cent decline in April, extending the 2022 loss to 44 per cent, according to people familiar with the matter. Its long-only fund was hit even worse, tumbling 25 per cent last month and 52 per cent for the year, the people said.

At year-end, Tiger Global had roughly US$35 billion invested across those 2 funds and another that makes both public and private wagers. Now it has about US$19 billion. A spokeswoman for the New York-based firm declined to comment.

“April added to a very disappointing start to 2022 for our public funds,” Tiger Global wrote in an investor letter seen by Bloomberg. “Markets have not been cooperative given the macroeconomic backdrop, but we do not believe in excuses and so will not offer any.”

The firm is headed for its worst year since it was founded in 2001 as fast-growing tech companies in the US and China - which had driven earlier gains gains - plunged in value. The tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 slid 13 per cent in April, its biggest monthly decline since 2008, while the broader S&P 500 fell 8.8 per cent, the most since 1970.

Tiger Global had long been one of the hedge fund industry’s top performers, as annualised returns exceeded 20 per cent through 2020, with just 2 down years. 

That helped make Coleman, 46, and his firm partner Scott Shleifer, 2 of the wealthiest people in finance. 

But last year’s 7 per cent decline, followed by the drubbing so far in 2022, has taken a considerable bite out of both men’s fortunes, with Coleman’s wealth dropping at least US$2.1 billion this year to about US$9 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

The speed of the declines has sent shock waves throughout the hedge fund industry and hammered investors, including foundations, endowments and pension funds. It also prompted an unusual note of contrition in a separate investor letter last month.

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"In this moment, we are humbled, but steady in our conviction and confident about the go-forward opportunity," the firm wrote after revealing a 34 per cent first-quarter drop. "We are reassessing and refining our models using all the inputs available to us."