A Tale of Two Tiger Cubs ~ market folly

Thursday, August 7, 2008

A Tale of Two Tiger Cubs

And this is exactly why I love tracking 'offspring' of investing legends like Julian Robertson. Although both Andreas Halvorsen of Viking Global and Stephen Mandel Jr. of Lone Pine Capital both learned the tricks of the trade under Robertson in their time at Tiger Management, both have taken what they've learned and added their own spice to the value oriented, yet growth at a reasonable price (G.A.R.P.) tolerable investment style.

Although Viking Global and Lone Pine come from the same school of thought, their returns are polar opposite year to date. So far, Viking's Global Equities III Fund is up 8.45% year to date. While, on the other hand, Lone Pine's Lone Cedar Fund is -5.38% year to date. Oh how the slightest tweaks in philosophy make a difference. While both are still outperforming the S&P on a relative basis, Lone Pine being down for the year is slightly surprising given the amazing run they had last year, netting 44% in 2007. Has Mandel's momentum run out? Its still much too early to tell.

Many 'Tiger Cub' funds often have similar positions in their portfolio, which is understandable given their similar general investment philosophies. What sets them apart from each other though, are the positions they take that are dissimilar from their former Tiger Management peers. And, in a few weeks when the next round of SEC 13F filings are released, we'll be able to see just where Viking differed from Lone Pine in their approach.

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Courtesy of the NY Post, we see just how some big hedge funds are faring year to date. As mentioned in previous posts, Harbinger Capital is tearing it up, as is John Paulson again (he tore it up last year as well due to his bets against the subprime mess). Some notable surprises on the list are Jeffrey Gendell's Tontine Associates poor performance, -17% year to date. It should be noted though, that he is more or less a value player, and we all know value is dead in 2008 (ha!). Also notable is Bret Barakett's Tremblant Capital -8.96% year to date. Bret is the brother of Timothy Barakett (manager of Atticus Capital), whom I track on the blog. I'll take a closer look at both of their 13f's this next go-round to see how similar/dissimilar the brothers are in their investment philosophies.

(click to enlarge)


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