Back in the summer of 2012, we had some fun when we reported that Whitney Tilson – the consummate, if always late immitator of other prominent investors especially Warren Buffett and Bill Ackman – following several years of abysmal returns, closed his then-hedge fund T2 (with Glenn Tongue), splitting off into his own, oddly-named venture, Kase Capital. Well, Whitney – who in recent years was better known for his bizarre family photos from Africa than managing money- has done it again and according to the WSJ, Tilson closed his hedge fund… again, “the latest high-profile investor to close shop amid an extended period of disappointing returns for the industry.”
As the WSJ adds, Tilson, 50, shared his decision with clients (apparently he still had some) on Sunday. His latest hedge fund, Kase Capital, which was managing a whopping 50 million at the time of closure, and down from a peak of $180 million, lost about 8% so far this year, a more than 20% underperformance relative to the S&P YTD gain of more than 13%.
As the WSJ adds sarcastically, “while he ran a relatively small fund, Mr. Tilson was a well-known hedge-fund manager thanks to television and conference appearances, as well as books and regular writing about investing and other topics.” In other words, Tilson was not so much a “hedge fund manager” as its straight-to-CNBC marketer, and the results have confirmed it.
In an amusing twist, in 2016 Tilson – a staunch never-Trumpter – inexplicably found himself the subject of scathing criticism by Elizabeth Warren, after Tilson expressed modest public support of some of President Donald Trump’s cabinet and other appointments from the banking world, “even though Mr. Tilson is a lifelong Democrat who voted for Hillary Clinton.”
This post was published at Zero Hedge on Sep 28, 2017.
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