Influential billionaire investor Julian Robertson, who founded Tiger Management and mentored generations of hedge fund managers known as "Tiger Cubs," has died. He was 90.
According to a Bloomberg report, citing Robertson's longtime spokesperson Fraser Seitel, Robertson died Tuesday morning at his home in Manhattan, New York from cardiac complications.
Robertson's Tiger Management was once ranked among the biggest and most successful hedge funds in the world. The billionaire investor started the firm in 1980 with less than $9 million in assets before growing to nearly $22 billion in assets by the end of the '90s. During that time, Tiger Management earned an average return of 32% per year.
Bloomberg reports that short seller Jim Chanos once said that Robertson "knew stocks better than anyone."
In a CNBC interview Tuesday following the news of Robertson's death, Chanos said "there was no one better than Julian Robertson," in terms of interacting on stocks.
There's a reason that the Tiger Cubs all came out of his firm, he noted. Chanos told CNBC that when you pitched a short idea to Robertson, he would invite several "bulls" over for lunch to challenge you on every part of your thesis.
"He was a portfolio manager's portfolio manager, but he also understood analysis. There was no one better and I've said that for years," Chanos said.
Robertson was a noted philanthropist, with New York Stem Cell Foundation and Success Academy Charter Schools in New York among those organizations he supported. He was a founder and benefactor of the Roberston Scholars Program which awarded a merit scholarship for 36 Duke University and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill students a year. The scholarship provided four-year, full-tuition room, board and travel expenses. Robertson had also signed The Giving Pledge, in which a wealthy person would pledge at least half of their assets to charity.
Roberston was born in 1932 in Salisbury, North Carolina, the son of Blanche Spencer and Julian Hart Roberston Sr. He graduated from Episcopal High School in Virginia in 1951, then University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1955. He served in the U.S. Navy until 1957.
He moved to New York City, working for Kidder, Peabody & Co. before moving to New Zealand to write a novel. Upon his return a year later, he founded Tiger Management.
Roberston was married to the late Josephine Tucker Roberston, who passed away in 2010. They had three sons: Julian III, known as Jay; Alexander; and Spencer.
Robertson had an estimated net worth of $4.8 billion, according to Forbes.
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