market folly

We wanted to highlight some of the latest SEC filings from Chase Coleman's tech-focused hedge fund Tiger Global. Last year we focused on how Tiger was buying stakes in internet companies in emerging markets. That trend remains unchanged.

Coleman's firm has found great success by morphing into a venture capital fund, investing in private early stage tech companies. While these investments typically represent only a small portion of their funds (~10%), they've made a significant impact. According to II, Tiger is up a whopping 34.5% in 2011.

A perfect example of such success is social networking site Linked In (LNKD). The company went public in June and Tiger already owned a stake back when the company was private.

HomeAway Inc (AWAY)

Turning to recent portfolio activity, Tiger Global now has a 5.88% ownership stake in HomeAway Inc (AWAY) with 4,691,881 shares according to a 13G filed with the SEC.

This is yet another investment that they made pre-IPO. The company's initial public offering was on June 29th.

Per Google Finance, HomeAway is "an early-stage company. HomeAway operates the online marketplace for the vacation rental industry. As of March 31, 2011, HomeAway operated its online marketplace through 31 Websites in 11 languages and provided listings for vacation rentals located in over 145 countries."


BitAuto (BITA)

Tiger Global also filed a 13G with the SEC regarding shares of BitAuto (BITA). They disclosed a 7.3% ownership stake in BITA with 3,020,745 shares due to portfolio activity on June 20th. This marks almost a 47% increase in their position size as they only owned 2,055,500 shares at the end of the first quarter.

Per Google Finance, BitAuto "is a provider of Internet content and marketing services for People’s Republic of China’s automotive industry. Its bitauto.com and ucar.cn Websites provide consumers with up-to-date new and used automobile pricing information, specifications, reviews and consumer feedback."

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