market folly

Lei Zhang's investment firm Hillhouse Capital has filed a 13D with the SEC regarding shares of Qunar Cayman Islands (QUNR).  Per the filing, Hillhouse now owns 12.99% of the company with exposure to over 20.2 million Class B shares. 

Their position is mainly via American Depositary Shares (ADS) of which they own 6.7 million shares.  This marks an increase from the first quarter when they owned 5.7 million ADS shares.

The filing was made due to activity on June 5th as the hedge fund participated in the company's public offering.  They purchased $170 million worth of 2.0% convertible senior notes due 2021 with a closing on June 17th, 2015.

Hillhouse originally invested in Qunar in 2013 and then acquired more in 2014 as well.

About Hillhouse Capital

Lei Zhang started his firm with $30 million and is now one of the largest hedge funds in China, managing around $18 billion.  He runs a concentrated portfolio and performs fundamental bottom-up research on individual companies with a primary focus on the Asia Pacific region. 

Zhang likes to focus on the people and teams behind the business and usually holds longs 3-5 years.  He earned both an MBA and MA from Yale as well as a BA in Economics from Renmin University of China.  Hillhouse is named after an avenue in New Haven, where Yale is located.

About Qunar

Per Google Finance, Qunar is "engaged in offering mobile and online commerce platform for travel in China. The Company offers a range of travel products, including flights, hotels, vacations packages, attraction tickets and other travel related offerings. The Company has developed Qunar Travel, its mobile application, which enables its users to search for and purchase travel products."