By Svea Herbst-Bayliss
BOSTON (Reuters) - Several hedge funds who trace their ancestry to billionaire investor Julian Robertson's Tiger Management are boasting positive returns for the year even as tumbling markets have left many rivals with losses.
In the first three months of 2018, Glen Kacher's Light Street Capital gained 11.8 percent while Chase Coleman's Tiger Global rose 6.7 percent and Jonathan Auerbach's Hound Partners was up nearly 1 percent, investors in the funds said.
Light Street gained 1.9 percent in March, an investor said. Tiger Global lost 2.4 percent and Hound slipped 1.1 percent last month, the investors said.
That compares with a loss for the S&P 500 stock index of 2.7 percent for March and a loss of 1.2 percent for the first three months of the year. The average global hedge fund has lost 1.03 percent since January, data from Hedge Fund Research show.
Representatives for the funds either declined to comment or could not be reached for comment.
Part of the reason Light Street has been performing well this year is the firm's ability to successfully bet against companies whose business models are vulnerable, one investor said. Tiger Global wrote to investors earlier this year that it was committed to short selling, adding "there will be a period when our hard work pays dividends."
Hedge funds have historically billed themselves as being able to make money in all markets by betting against stocks that are duds, but investors say many managers have not had to practice those skills sufficiently as markets raced higher.
Light Street's 2018 gains follow on the heels of a 38.6 percent rise last year, which was generated, in part, through successful short bets.
Last week the $1.2 billion Menlo Park-based firm stopped taking in money from new investors as it tries to limit its size. It has commitments to grow to roughly $1.5 billion, a person familiar with the firm said.
One of Light Street's biggest winners this year has been Brazil-based payment services company PagSeguro Digital which went public earlier this year and has returned 30 percent since then. German online food delivery service Delivery Hero and Japanese payment processing company GMO Payment Gateway Inc also contributed gains this year.
All funds trace their professional roots to Julian Robertson and his Tiger Management, once one of the world's most successful hedge funds with $22 billion in assets at its peak before it shut down in 2000.