Feroz Dewan, Tiger Global ManagementTiger
Global Management, one of the most well known Tiger-cub firms, has announced two of
its most senior investment executives are leaving.
According to a letter addressed to clients—obtained by the Wall Street Journal and Reuters—Feroz Dewan, head of public equity investing at the $20 billion firm, will leave at the end of June to start his own investment operation.
Caleb Watts, another Tiger Global partner, will be leaving to focus on managing his own money, wrote the firm’s founder, Chase Coleman. The New York-based firm also lost two other partners—Andrew Bellas an Alexander Captain—in January.
Dewan, who joined the firm in 2003, oversaw Tiger Global’s nearly $6 billion hedge fund business and spearheaded a long-only fund that invests in public securities.
Dewan’s “strong leadership of our public equity investing efforts has left a lasting mark on the firm,” Coleman wrote. “We look forward to finding ways to work with him in the future.”
Scott Schleifer, a long-term partner who ran the firm’s private equity business, is to replace Dewan.
Tiger Global also tapped Lee Fixel, the private equity division’s other co-chief, to take control of the entire unit focused on technology investing.
In the letter, Coleman said the firm came across challenges running various public equities funds and that it would merge Tiger Global Internet Opportunities (TGIO)—a $700 million fund started in January—with the long opportunities fund.
“We regret that it took launching TGIO for us to fully appreciate this, and we apologize for the inconvenience,” Coleman wrote. “We realized the challenge of aligning incentives properly across three public equity funds.”
The internet fund gained 11% since inception while the long opportunities fund posted a 20% net return over the past 19 months.
In addition to the merger of the two funds, Tiger Global said in the letter investors would be free to withdraw their investments from the public equity funds as of June 30.
The firm’s founder assured investors that he would be “closely involved in the portfolio management and investment research of both businesses and will also maintain primary responsibility for the non-investment functions of the firm.”
Tiger Global’s spokesperson was unavailable for comment at time of press.
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