Soroban Capital Partners has rolled out a new long-only fund.
The hedge fund firm headed by Eric Mandelblatt so far has raised $3.1 billion for Soroban Long Only Equity Fund and an offshore equivalent, says someone familiar with the matter. The funds launched on April 1, according to regulatory filings.
Mandelblatt, Gaurav Kapadia, and Scott Friedman founded Soroban in 2010 after leaving TPG-Axon Capital Management. Kapadia left the firm in 2018 to start a family office, per a Bloomberg report at the time.
At the end of 2023, Soroban had $10.155 billion under management, says the filing. It focuses on public and private companies in the industrial economy, technology, consumer, and payments & information services sectors, according to its bare-bones website.
At year-end, the firm held 29 different common stocks in its U.S.-listed portfolio, per its most recent 13F filing. However, three stocks accounted for roughly half the capital: railroads Union Pacific and CSX and Microsoft.
Soroban declined to comment or to provide any details about the new fund. In its annual ADV filing, made public in late March, it provided a cursory description of the long-only fund without referring to it by name. The firm noted that a new fund, to be launched on April 1, would consist of “long equity or equity-related investments,” with a “strong emphasis” on the United States. It also said it might invest in new issues “from time to time.”
Soroban said the fund will seek to be fully invested and will target a typical long exposure between 100 and 125 percent, though it “may fall outside” the range because of market movements or by temporarily holding cash for operational purposes, such as portfolio rebalancing or subscription and withdrawal activity.
Soroban also said in the filing that it expects to make significant concentrated investments. “There are no diversification or concentration constraints on these funds, and the funds tend to hold large positions in a relatively limited number of investments,” it explained.
Although the new fund is a long-only strategy, the firm said in the filing that it might engage in short-selling or other hedges to manage any risks it deems appropriate, including at the portfolio and position levels. “Accordingly, there may be times when these funds employ short positions even though the term ‘long’ is included in the name of the fund,” Soroban stressed. It noted, though, that the fund will not employ short-selling to directly express an investment thesis outside of general hedging.