Last month Chase Coleman returned to AR’s Rich List of the highest-earning hedge fund managers after a three-year absence.
And his fund, Tiger Global, has continued the form that got him there, generating gains of roughly 3.7 percent in January, 3.8 percent in February and 5.1 percent in March.
Last year the long-short specialist was the top-performing hedge fund manager with a 45 percent gain, enabling him to earn $550 million from fees and gains on his own capital.
Coleman continued to rack up huge gains from big bets on Internet stocks.
Coleman probably made a fair amount of money on shorts, as well. His net exposure was 30.2 percent at the beginning of the year; it dropped to 19.9 percent by January 23 and hit as low as 17.9 percent on February 16, according to Tiger Global performance and exposure reports obtained by Institutional Investor. His March report is not yet available. It is not known what he shorted in the first quarter.
But according to a year-end regulatory filing, he had a small position in puts of Sears Holdings and an even smaller long position in the common stock. The stock, however, more than doubled in the first quarter. Of course, it will not be known until mid-May whether Coleman held on to the puts the entire first quarter.
A number of his longs fared well, however.
Coleman, who is said to have $6 billion in his hedge funds and more than $13 billion altogether, including private equity funds, had a $5.7 billion U.S. equity portfolio at year-end. Yandex, the most popular Internet company in Russia and its biggest search engine — it accounted for more than $1 billion of his long-stock portfolio at year-end — surged another 33 percent in the first quarter alone.
Apple, his second-largest holding, surged 48 percent in the first quarter while Priceline.com, his third-largest position — he held common and calls — rose more than 53 percent.
Coleman declined to comment through a spokesperson.
