The firm has been investing in startups for years, raising valuations in some cases, but returns suffered when the market shifted sharply
Tiger Global Management is going through a major management change. According to a message from founder Chase Coleman sent this afternoon to the 22-year-old venture capitalist and hedge fund’s investors, Coleman is taking over both the company’s public investment and private equity businesses, while the latter’s longtime head, Scott Shleifer, becomes a senior adviser effective Jan. 1, a role that is a full-time position with no end date, according to a source with knowledge of the maneuver.
According to Coleman, the decision was made by Slifer, primarily because Slifer and his family “made their home in Florida and want to stay there.” Meanwhile, Coleman writes, “Tiger Global operates in person out of our offices in New York” and “has found that having everyone together in New York is extremely productive and a better operating model for our company.”
Tiger was founded by Coleman, a protégé of hedge fund pioneer Julian Robertson, in 2000. Shleifer joined two years later.
This is not the company’s first major leadership change. In 2015, one of the chief investments, Feroz Dewan, left to start his own investment firm, now called Arena Holdings Management, in New York.
Tiger’s private equity business was then headed by Lee Fixel, who joined the firm in 2006 and stepped down to hang up his own shingle in March 2019. Fixel has since raised a number of multibillion-dollar investment funds in this company, called Addition.
After Fixel’s departure, Shleifer and Coleman continued as co-managers of the portfolios Fixel had overseen, with Shleifer taking over as head. But he took control in what in retrospect turned out to be a treacherous period for the company. After announcing in January 2020 that Tiger Global had raised $3.75 billion in commitments for its 12th fund, Schleifer put the pedal to the metal, overseeing a business that made bold bets on a rapid-fire quote despite already strong valuations. For a time, investors were so happy with the strategy — which seemed to be working — that they awarded Tiger a massive $12.7 billion vehicle that closed in March 2022 after just four months of fundraising.
The timing of the checkout couldn’t have been worse. Driven by rising interest rates, public and then private, the broader market began to fall rapidly and with it the Tiger paper is making a big comeback. Indeed, although the firm began marketing its newest fund, Private Investment Partners Fund 16, to investors 13 months ago with a target of $6 billion, it has yet to close, per the source.
According to earlier Bloomberg report, a surge in AI-related public stocks helped Tiger’s recovery. a source says he has seen positive returns all year. Meanwhile, an early bet on OpenAI that looked a week ago could help save the company’s private market returns is now in jeopardy, with ousted CEO Sam Altman reportedly in talks to join to OpenAI investor Microsoft and move much of the OpenAI team to the corporate giant. crumple.
According to Coleman’s letter to investors, Shleifer will continue to “advice on our investment activities in the breadth of our private funds.” As part of the transition, Tiger Global is “also forming an Investment Committee for our Private Equity business, which I will chair, consisting of Evan Feinberg, Eric Lane, Griffin Schroeder and Scott, which will support me in reviewing new investments and the supervision of dispositions of assets”.
