Peter Thiel up 230% with Soros-style fund

a529612 · Dec 5, 2006

Sounds like a disaster waiting to happen...

Clarium investors need a stomach for risk, because Thiel has put all their eggs in a few baskets. In 2003, for example, Clarium made a fortune partly by betting -- correctly, it turned out -- that the dollar would weaken. Clarium turned heads by posting a 65.6 percent return that year.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aPlSRwPxtTKA&refer=home

trillenium · Dec 5, 2006

http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=81991&highlight=clarium

me1969 · Dec 5, 2006

Quote from a529612:

Sounds like a disaster waiting to happen...

So it sounds to me, too. This guy proves himself as a bad loser, smashing chess pieces... Hm, very often, bad losers lose very big sometime.. By the way, as far as I know George Soros is not a bad loser, he is a quick loser. Losing is an art only a few can conceive.

S2007S · Dec 5, 2006

Article was good. Makes you think that only a handful of people ever make it that far.

Pekelo · Dec 5, 2006

"Thiel has even more riding on Clarium than most of his clients. He says he's invested his entire liquid net worth in his fund."

How wise is that? I mean it is nice to back up your conviction, but it is also nice to have a back up plan for blowing up...

Moreover:

"Thiel doesn't charge his customers an annual management fee. Instead, he pockets 25 percent of Clarium's trading gains. "

So last year's 5%+ performance meant, let's say they only had 1 billion AUM (currently 2.1)>>>50mill/4= 12.5 mill as a salary...

JamesVU2000 · Dec 5, 2006

Obviously Peter Thiel is very smart and has been successful in other ventures like paypal, nevertheless it shows up much money is being handed over to people with almost zero experience. 4 years is a joke. How will most of these manangers react when things go completely nuts? Most people achieve success after at least a decade of experience. How many people have a decade of experience doing this stuff? not that many.

Pekelo · Dec 5, 2006

I messed up the year:

2004 5% return with 320M AUM >>> 4M salary
2005 57% return 1.3B AUM >>> 186M salary

A "slight " difference, one could say...

illiquid · Dec 5, 2006

So he's been betting on a stronger dollar? How dated are these positions by the time bloomberg gets a hold of them?

psytrade · Dec 5, 2006

pekelo, he wasnt managing 1 bil in 2004 or 2005. I think that came this year.

Hes also being sued by a former investor in the funds

http://www.siliconbeat.com/entries/...collective_delusion_ebay_strays_on_yahoo.html

So not everything is perfect.

Its just proof that capital is still sloshing around in the valley.

WallstYouth · Dec 5, 2006

Quote from Pekelo:

"Thiel has even more riding on Clarium than most of his clients. He says he's invested his entire liquid net worth in his fund."

How wise is that? I mean it is nice to back up your conviction, but it is also nice to have a back up plan for blowing up...

Moreover:

"Thiel doesn't charge his customers an annual management fee. Instead, he pockets 25 percent of Clarium's trading gains. "

So last year's 5%+ performance meant, let's say they only had 1 billion AUM (currently 2.1)>>>50mill/4= 12.5 mill as a salary...

He has a $100 million in facebook that's a nice retirement fund right there in it's self.