Tiger Global Management’s has incurred one of the largest-ever losses by a hedge fund in 2022. 2022 is getting worse with losses at the firm’s high-profile hedge fund ballooning to 52% through May.
Tiger reported the drop, which extends a 44% loss recorded through April, in a note to its investors Thursday. The firm’s long-only fund lost 20.6% in May, bringing its losses for the year to 61.7%. The losses prompted Tiger to cut its management fee by 0.5% through December 2023 in both its hedge fund and long-only fund.
Tiger also said that starting in June, it would pay out investors exiting from those funds with both cash and shares in a new side pocket it would create containing stakes in private companies that would be paid out as those investments are realized. Tiger, which manages about $75 billion across its public and private-equity funds, said the value of its private investments had become a far larger proportion of its funds as its portfolio of public stocks continued to lose money.
If the 2000 dot-com crash provides any guide, Tiger Global might very well be able to get away with small write-downs for another quarter or two. The bear market back then also began early in the year, but it was not until the last quarter that VC funds had to mark down their portfolios.