Never mind! That’s what Philippe Laffont’s Coatue Management told clients who have complained about the Tiger Cub’s plan to return more than $2 billion to investors. Coatue will probably wait until the end of the year to return the money so investors can have a better chance of making back their early-year losses, according to a CNBC report. The firm is also planning to give back less than it originally planned to return to investors, so that the firm will ultimately manage around $5.5 to $6 billion, according to the report. The New York firm’s flagship fund is up 5.1 percent this month, through May 23.
Last year Laffont earned $310 million, ranking number 24 on Alpha‘s annual Rich List. Last year Coatue Qualified Partners posted gains in the upper teens, led by long positions that were heavily concentrated in technology, Internet and media stocks. They included Priceline.com, up 87 percent; CBS Corp., 68 percent; Google, 58 percent; and Time Warner, 46 percent. After many of the hottest momentum stocks sold off from mid-March to April of this year, Laffont quickly told clients he would return as much as one third of the $7 billion in assets in his main long-short fund.
—
Paul Singer’s Elliott Management continues to apply pressure to Riverbed Technology. In a letter to the network gear maker’s board of directors, portfolio manager Jesse Cohn called for a meeting in the next two weeks among the board, senior management and Elliott to discuss a way to maximize shareholder value. Elliott remains committed to this effort and intends to exercise all rights at its disposal to ensure that the Board’s duties to shareholders are fulfilled, adds the New York hedge fund, whose earlier acquisition offers have been repeatedly rejected.
Cohn also points out that at last week’s annual meeting, shareholders voted off the only board member up for election this year and voted against the company’s executive compensation plan. This clear message from your shareholders follows the resignation of the other two board nominees who were up for re-election this year and who thereby avoided this year’s shareholder vote by leaving the board, the letter adds, noting that since January, Riverbed’s board has gone from nine to just six members. Had the entire board been up for a vote at last week’s meeting, we have no doubt that Riverbed would have a completely new board today.
—
Tiger Global was one among a handful of firms to invest a total of $210 million in India-based online shopping site Flipkart. According to medianama.com, which tracks digital media in India, this is at least the sixth time Tiger Global, the venture capital and hedge fund firm founded by Charles (Chase) Coleman, has invested in Flipkart, which recently acquired online fashion store Myntra. Tiger Global has also previously invested in Myntra. Tiger Global’s private equity operation, which now has roughly $7.5 billion in total capital committed, is run by Scott Shleifer, who started the business, and Lee Fixel.
—
William Ackman’s Pershing Square International, managed by New York–based Pershing Square Capital Management, was off nearly 1 percent in the first half of May. However, it is still up more than 18 percent for the year. Another activist, Nelson Peltz‘s Trian Partners, doubled its gains for the year in the first half of May and is now up 1 percent year-to-date.
—
Shares of high-flying but money-losing software company Workday surged more than 5 percent in after hours trading after it reported quarterly results that slightly exceeded Wall Street expectations. Tiger Cubs Viking Global Investors and Lone Pine Capital Management are investors in the stock.
