Whitney Tilson: Worst High Profile Hedge Fund Manager in Recent Years?

Lol not kidding....

Portfolio consists of mostly Berkshire and options...and he piggybacks his ideas off of other fund managers

Regarding a question asked about GuruFocus posting his 13F
"I've always said I'm a shameless clone. So if they copy me, the more power to them. I think that's perfectly ok"

Short NFLX
Short HLF
Short GMCR
Short GOOGL
Long CALL
Long SODA

Source: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/presenting-whitney-tilsons-performance-in…

 

The guy is a fantastic business man though. He makes a killing on VII and Value Investor Congress.

As far as his investing talent - the truth is, if you can create alpha from curtailing other investors no bigge. However, if the numbers you posted are truth... The guy should have went into marketing.

 

I just pulled up his latest investor letter for kase capital (the predecessor to which was the t2 accredited fund) and net of fees he has materially outperformed the S&P500 since inception. I imagine a big chunk of that outperformance has been eroded at the LP level by (i) taxes and (ii) adverse entry/exit timing by LPs, but from a manager skill standpoint he appears to be holding his own just fine.

 

That performance was generated as a co-manager, since he's run his own book it's been below the S&P.. plus compared to other people and their funds that get as much press, his overall performance lags way behind. And his brazen copying of other's ideas to create his entire portfolio and inability to generate any good ones on his own is kind of pathetic.

 

I think HLF is going to destroy Ackman, shorts.

1) If it was a pyramid scheme why didn't it go bankrupt in 08/09?

2) Carl Icahn is now an insider and on the BOD. He has inside info and as long as we can see he's still long… 13Fs coming out soon. He would be running for the hills if he found some pyramid scheme as an insider. I don't think he would risk his reputation and IEP for pocket change

3) Theres like 4 government agencies on them… how long does it take for them to find out if its a pyramid scheme or not? Its been a while….

Yes their business model is messed up but its not illegal...

 
Best Response
azndarkvader:

I think HLF is going to destroy Ackman, shorts.

1) If it was a pyramid scheme why didn't it go bankrupt in 08/09?

2) Carl Icahn is now an insider and on the BOD. He has inside info and as long as we can see he's still long… 13Fs coming out soon. He would be running for the hills if he found some pyramid scheme as an insider. I don't think he would risk his reputation and IEP for pocket change

3) Theres like 4 government agencies on them… how long does it take for them to find out if its a pyramid scheme or not? Its been a while….

Yes their business model is messed up but its not illegal...

To answer 3). Assuming the 'Fooling Some of the People All of the Time' book is an accurate representation of true facts and if we consider the case of Allied Capital - probably quite a while.

Personally still do not really 'believe' in shorts that are reliant on government action.

 

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