You can enable subtitles (captions) in the video player
Few funds epitomise the huge bull market in technology stocks and the recent vicious sell-off quite like Chase Coleman's Tiger Global. A favourite protégé of legendary hedge fund manager Julian Robertson, Coleman set up his New York based firm in 2001 during the bursting of the bubble, which saw the NASDAQ plunge in value.
Drawing on his mentor's hugely successful investing style, he hunted for companies with strong positions in an industry and high barriers to entry. Valuations, while important, could be a secondary consideration. Chinese internet stocks, overlooked by western investors, were a source of early gains.
Coleman's strategy proved highly effective. Its punchy bets on the growth of tech firms, both listed and private, helped it become one of the world's most successful hedge fund and private equity firms.
Assets swelled to around $90bn. By the start of 2021, Coleman featured in LCH Investment's list of the top performing hedge fund managers of all time, above star names such as Steve Cohen, Alan Howard, and Louis Bacon. But Tiger Global's style has recently fallen badly out of favour.
Rising interest rates have made tech companies with projected cash flows far in the future less appealing. Valuations have plummeted. Its hedge fund, which suffered big losses on holdings such as Peloton, posted a 7 per cent loss last year.
Much worse was to come. This year to the end of May, it lost a further 52 per cent. That erased the majority of the dollar gains it had made for investors since launch more than 20 years ago.
So far, investors appear to be backing Coleman whose fund has cut fees this year. He told investors he believes the losses mark "one point in time on a long journey" and is committed to making them back. Doing that will surely prove the toughest test of his career yet.