Billionaire hedge fund manager Julian Robertson dies at 90- spokesman (updated)
23/08/2022 18:07
(Adds details on Robertson, alumni network, philanthropy)
By Svea Herbst-Bayliss and Carolina Mandl
BOSTON, Aug 23 (Reuters) - Billionaire investor Julian
Robertson, whose Tiger Management once ranked among the world's
biggest and most successful hedge funds and who trained
generations of prominent managers known as "Tiger Cubs," has
died at age 90.
Robertson died at his home in New York from cardiac
complications, said his spokesman, Fraser Seitel.
The North Carolina-born investor who specialized in picking
stocks co-founded Tiger Management in 1980 and grew the firm to
oversee roughly $22 billion by the late 1990s, boasting an
average annual return of 32%.
In 2000, he shuttered the firm, saying he could no longer
make sense of the markets which were being fueled by the boom
and eventual bust of many technology oriented stocks.
Robertson had a net worth of $4.8 billion, according to
Forbes.
At Tiger Management, Robertson employed and trained analysts
in the art of stock picking. Dozens of them eventually went on
to found their own firms, creating one of the industry's
broadest alumni networks. Viking Global Investors' Andreas
Halvorsen, Lone Pine Capital's Stephen Mandel, Maverick
Capital's Lee Ainslie and Tiger Global Management's Chase
Coleman all started with Robertson.
“Julian was a pioneer and a giant in our industry, respected
as much for his abilities as an investor as for the integrity,
honesty, loyalty and competitiveness he demonstrated as a
leader," Coleman said in a statement. "He made the time to be a
true mentor, always leading by example and pushing all of us to
become the best versions of ourselves."
By 2008, some 36 former employees had founded their own
funds and managed $100 billion in assets, with Robertson
extending seed capital to many of them, journalist Sebastian
Mallaby wrote in his book "More Money Than God".
To keep his staff operating at peak performance, Robertson
liked to recruit college athletes with a competitive streak,
organized hikes for the team and kept a trainer in the office to
encourage the staff to exercise, Mallaby wrote.
More important were Robertson's own instincts on trading and
when to bow out, people who worked with him have said. In 2000
Robertson acknowledged that his pattern of picking cheap stocks
with good earnings prospects wasn't working anymore.
After years of strong returns, Tiger Management suffered a
double digit loss in 1999 and started 2000 with more losses.
He wrote to his investors that there was no point in
"subjecting (them) to risk in a market which I frankly do not
understand."
"It is hard to think of anyone who had a bigger impact on
today's market participant on the equities side than Julian,"
hedge fund manager Jim Chanos told television channel CNBC.
Not all of Robertson's former staff fared well in the hedge
fund industry. Bill Hwang's Archegos Capital Management
collapsed in early 2021 causing about $10 billion of losses at
banks including Credit Suisse and prompting federal prosecutors
to charge him with fraud, market manipulation and racketeering
conspiracy.
Robertson got into the money management business when he
joined Kidder Peabody in 1957 soon after graduating from the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He rose to become
CEO of Webster Management, Kidder's investment advisory unit and
left in 1978.
Robertson gave away an estimated $2 billion during his
lifetime, donating to causes ranging from education to medical
research, his spokesman said.
Robertson is survived by three sons. His wife, Josephine,
died in 2010.
(Reporting by Svea Herbst-Bayliss; Editing by Mark Porter and
David Gregorio)
((svea.herbst@thomsonreuters.com; +617 856 4331; Reuters
Messaging: svea.herbst.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))