By Svea Herbst-Bayliss
BOSTON (Reuters) - Hedge fund Tiger Global Management, known for making big bets on technology companies, lost 8.5 percent last month, leaving it down 22.5 percent for the year to date, a person familiar with the numbers said.
The New York-based fund, which manages roughly $6 billion in its hedge fund, did not tell investors exactly what caused the February losses.
Tiger Global, in a recent regulatory filing, reported that some stocks that the fund owned at the end of last year suffered a beating in February. Business intelligence software solutions company Tableau Software Inc and home luxury furnishings company Restoration Hardware Holdings Inc both lost money in February and they appeared on the fund's most recent 13F filing.
A spokeswoman for the fund declined to comment.
Tiger Global ranks among the industry's most closely watched firms. It ended last year with a 6.8 percent gain when many other firms lost money. But it started January off with a 14 percent drop largely because shares of Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Netflix Inc (NASDAQ:NFLX), which had helped the fund last year, tumbled in January.
The 15-year-old firm oversees a total of $20 billion. Last year, Scott Shleifer replaced Feroz Dewan, who left the firm, in running its public equity business.
In a letter sent to Tiger Global clients earlier this year, the firm acknowledged the rocky start to the year, saying, "Our longs declined considerably but our shorts have not gone down nearly as much."
Many hedge funds are still compiling their monthly returns for February and investors are bracing for a slew of bad numbers, in part because they said some funds became too defensive during the month and missed some of the market's rebound.
The Standard & Poor's 500 index lost 5.5 percent during the first two months of 2016, having pared some losses in late February.
Separately, Viking Global, another large and well respected fund, lost 7 percent last month, likely in part because shares of Valeant Pharmaceuticals (NYSE:VRX) tumbled last month when the company told investors it was being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company also put off an earnings call.