O. Andreas Halvorsen of Viking Global Investors made $370 million

A hedge fund investor is typically required to have a minimum net worth of $1 million. That weathers the possible significant downturns as they seek high returns. While, on average, hedge funds have lost money over the recent years, the industry’s top fund managers are continually making billions.

Among such is Andreas Halvorsen, a stock investor who’s well-versed with how leveraging works when it comes to options, futures, and other derivatives used by hedge funds to boost returns. He has been continuously ranked among the world’s top hedge fund managers.

Basic & Personal Profile
Name: O. Andreas Halvorsen
Age (Current): 56
Nationality: Norway
Education: MBA (Stanford Business School), Bachelor’s Degree in Arts/Science (Williams College)
Occupation: Hedge Fund Manager, Investor, Philanthropist
Net Worth: $2.8 Billion (as of January 2016)

Ole Andreas Halvorsen, Norwegian-born based in Greenwich (Connecticut), is among the world’s topmost-earning hedge fund’ managers. He graduated from Williams College (1986) and Stanford Business School (1990).

While at Stanford, he received the prestigious Alexander A. Robichek’ Finance Award as an Arjay-Miller Scholar. He’s currently on Williams College’s Board of Trustees, as well. Ole Andreas also served as a leader of the Royal Norway Navy’s SEAL Team.

Currently, Andreas is the C.E.O. of Viking Global Investors, along with co-founders, Brian Olson and David Ott. The three of them are former employees of Tiger Management Corp. Andreas, in particular, is widely regarded to as among the best Tiger Management Corporation’s alumni.

Andreas Halvorsen’s Former Career Pursuits

Some time back, Andreas worked in Morgan Stanley’s Investment Banking Division. Afterwards, he was involved in equities’ trading at Tiger Management Corp, which was then managed by Julian Robertson. While at this firm, he worked as the senior managing director.

He also held other positions, such as being a director and analyst of equities, in addition to being a member of the corporation’s management committee. O. Andreas also sat on the Board that supervised Tiger’s largest hedge fund, Jaguar Fund N.V.

Viking Global Investors

Andreas founded Viking Global, a short/long global equity fund, back in 1999. This firm follows a bottom-up stock-pick approach. Its main operations cover hedge funds and public equity on the international and regional markets.

In its first business year, it returned a surprising 89% after all fees. Andreas went ahead to earn an astonishing $200 million in 2011. His performance, that year, helped him earn the reputation as among the world’s topmost-earning managers of hedge funds. By July 2014, Viking Global managed approximately $20.5 billion in the long-short fund assets and over $8 billion in the long-only strategies. In 2014, the firm returned a 13.4% fees’ net. It currently manages assets worth over $30 billion.

During 2014, Viking Global aimed at raising $2 billion for its Opportunities Fund. This fund was set to primarily focus on various illiquid investments. It reflected Andreas’ desire to have strategies that are specially structured for illiquid assets, as well as increased opportunities in that sector. It is not uncommon for Viking Global to invest in private firms and engage public companies which are challenging to trade quickly. Besides, it has previously invested in Alibaba and First Data.

Stock Investment: Philosophy and Strategy

As it’s with most Tiger Corporation’s alumni, Andreas is a stock picker. He’s convinced that, over time, disciplined valuation and thoughtful analysis help yield a suitably diversified portfolio of shorts and longs, whose developments in stock prices will deviate from one another and bring about a profitable spread.

His firm’s average yearly long-short spread, since inception, has been 24 percent. However, there’s significant quarterly variability that underlies that average, ranging from a low of -15 percent to a high of 24 percent.

Andreas notes that nearly all great alpha generations have been in his higher conviction ideas. Of the 921 short and long investments that Viking Global made over a 5-year period (2006–2011), 59 percent were profitable. From the 56 investments which resulted in a loss/profit exceeding a hundred basis points, 75 percent were profitable.

The firm’s top ten longs reported a 28 percent return per annum. On a non-levered basis, that outperformed their remaining longs by more than 12 percentage points. During 2014, Viking Global’s top 20 longs reported a 26.5 percent appreciation.

O. Andreas likes placing bets on higher-conviction companies. He lays focus on fundamental business aspects to select the brands to short or purchase. Such encourage young analysts to focus on becoming industry specialists, which then enables them to intimately indulge in picking stocks, rather than just crafting reports.

As its starting point, the fund basically tilts its portfolio 40 percent more towards the long side than the short one. However, the specific size of the fund’s long-side tilt flows and ebbs is based on Viking Global’s individual stock picks, and not on the market’s overarching view.

Stock Investment: Hedge Funds

With the onset of 2018, Andreas Halvorsen is among the hedge fund investors who’ve got a significant lot to celebrate. It’s just the right time for Viking Global Investors to sharpen their pencils and craft even better investment ideas, in addition to setting new macroeconomic themes for 2018.

You can track the Buy/Sell action of Andreas Halvorsen on the US stock market at https://spiking.com/v/halvorsenoleand.

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Photo credit:
https://www.weforum.org/people/o-andreas-halvorsen