Tiger Global Partner Lee Fixel to Leave Firm in June

Tiger Global Management’s private equity head Lee Fixel is leaving the alternative investment firm after 13 years, according to a letter sent to clients and obtained by Institutional Investor.

His last day with the firm founded by Chase Coleman is June 30. 

Scott Shleifer, the head of Tiger Global’s public equity business, will take over as the global head of private equity. He and Coleman will serve as co-portfolio managers of the private equity business.

Fixel’s departure is the second significant exit from Tiger Global in recent years.

Former Tiger Global partner Feroz Dewan left the firm in June 2015. Dewan had managed the New York-firm’s hedge funds and long-only funds on a day-to-day basis.

Shleifer has run the public hedge funds since Dewan’s exit. Previously, he had served as co-head of private equity alongside Fixel.

In fact, Shleifer actually co-founded Tiger Global’s private equity business with Coleman in 2003. The firm states in the letter that he has generated “exceptionally high” IRRs, or internal rates of return, on the investments for which he has been responsible “and has returned to investors a meaningful multiple of invested capital on his deals.”

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Tiger Global manages a total of $26 billion in capital, including its venture capital funds, hedge funds, and long-only fund.

In the fall, Tiger Global raised $3.75 billion for Private Investment Partners XI, its eleventh venture capital fund. The firm earlier said that it was targeting as much as $3 billion. 

In the letter, the firm said Fixel would not be actively involved in Tiger Global’s investment team beyond PIP XI. The fund was one of the biggest venture capital fund launches last year and came amid a boom in the asset class. According to the letter, PIP XI is already more than half invested.

PIP X, the venture fund’s predecessor, was fully invested last year, according to an email to investors. Tiger Global said it distributed $3.9 billion to investors at high aggregate IRRs last year. 

The firm’s first five funds from vintage years 2003 through 2008 called $2.7 billion in capital and returned $11.8 billion after fees, according to the email.

“Lee has been a driving force behind the expansion of Tiger Global’s private equity investing activities in the United States and India, and he has distinguished himself as a world-class investor across multiple sectors and stages,” the client letter stated.

According to the letter, Fixel will continue to assist in the management of certain existing portfolio companies for which he is responsible and serve on the boards of certain companies. “We believe there is strong incentive alignment amongst all parties, as Lee has a substantial LP investment in each PIP fund and meaningful co-investments in many of the portfolio companies he sourced,” the letter stated. “In addition, he retains material economics in our PIP funds.”

Tiger Global said Fixel expects to actively invest his own capital and may start an investment firm in the future. “We look forward to collaborating closely with him in the years to come,” the firm added.