Highfields Capital Management LP is a
hedge fund
A hedge fund is a pooled investment fund that trades in relatively liquid assets and is able to make extensive use of more complex trading, portfolio-construction, and risk management techniques in an attempt to improve performance, such as ...
founded in 1998 which had
assets of $12.1 billion in 2018. The annualized net returns during the firm's first 20 years were more than 10%.
Business
Richard Grubman and Jonathon Jacobson met at an investment lunch in New York City in the early ‘90s and started a friendship. In 1998, they opened Highfields Capital Management LP together in Boston, Massachusetts.
Highfields has invested in publicly traded equities and private companies like
Harry & David
Harry and David, LLC (Harry and David) is an American-based premium food and gift producer and retailer. The company sells its products through direct mail, online and in retail stores nationwide, and operates the brands Harry & David, Wolferman' ...
,
Michaels
Michaels Stores, Inc., more commonly known as Michaels, is a privately held chain of 1,252 American and Canadian arts and crafts stores, as of January 2021. It is one of North America's largest providers of arts, crafts, framing, floral and wall ...
,
Genworth Financial
Genworth Financial is an S&P 400 insurance company. The firm was founded as The Life Insurance Company of Virginia in 1871. In 1986, Life of Virginia was acquired by Combined Insurance, which became Aon plc in 1987. In 1996, Life of Virginia wa ...
,
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation, multinational technology company, technology corporation producing Software, computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at th ...
and
SLM Corporation; and other investments including
reinsurance sidecars. Grubman and Jacobson gained attention and a large payoff when they bet against Enron before the 2001 bankruptcy.
In February 2012, Highfields called for management change at
CoreLogic
CoreLogic, Inc. is an Irvine, CA-based corporation providing financial, property, and consumer information, analytics, and business intelligence. The company analyzes information assets and data to provide clients with analytics and customized ...
, in which it had a 7.65% stake.
In 2010, Highfields was listed as having $10 billion of assets on January 1, 2010, 30th in
The Hedge Fund Journal Top 50, up from $9.3 billion on July 1, 2009 and up from a 38th-place ranking in 2008.
In 2013, Highfields returned $2 billion to clients. As Jacobson wrote to investors, "we would rather be slightly smaller and generate better
eturns"
In October of 2018, Highfields announced in a letter that they would return all outside capital and would convert into a family office. In a third quarter letter to investors, Jacobson wrote, “Done correctly, money management is an all-consuming, 24/7 pursuit… After three-and-a-half decades of sitting in front of a screen, I realized I am ready for a change."
Over the 20 years between 1998 and 2018, Highfields only lost money in two years: 2002 and 2008.
Senior management
Richard Grubman and Jonathon Jacobson co-founded Highfields Capital Management LP in 1998.
[McIntosh, Bill, ed.]
"The US50"
''The Hedge Fund Journal'' in association with Newedge Prime Brokerage Group. Retrieved 2012-03-27.
Grubman retired in August 2010; Jacobson remains a principal of the firm.
Jacobson is
an undergraduate alumnus of Wharton School in finance and has an MBA from
Harvard Business School
Harvard Business School (HBS) is the graduate business school of Harvard University, a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. It is consistently ranked among the top business schools in the world and offers a large full-time MBA ...
.
["Highfields Capital Management"](_blank)
''Hedge Fund Letters'', n.d. Retrieved 2012-11-07. After working as an options trader and at
Merrill Lynch
Merrill (officially Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated), previously branded Merrill Lynch, is an American investment management and wealth management division of Bank of America. Along with BofA Securities, the investment banki ...
and
Lehman Brothers
Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. ( ) was an American global financial services firm founded in 1847. Before filing for bankruptcy in 2008, Lehman was the fourth-largest investment bank in the United States (behind Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, a ...
, he joined
Harvard Management Company
The Harvard University endowment (valued at $53.2 billion ) is the largest academic endowment in the world. Its value increased by over 10 billion dollars in fiscal year 2021, ending in the largest sum in its history. Along with Harvard's pension ...
in 1990. In 1998 Jacobson left HMC to co-found Highfields with a third of the fund's initial $1.5 billion under management coming from HMC.
[ ''Bloomberg'' reported in 2011 that HMC no longer invested with Highfields.][Wee, Gillian]
"Harvard's Crimson Cubs With $43 Billion Dwarf Their Former Endowment Home"
''Bloomberg'', March 2, 2011. Retrieved 2012-11-07.
References
External links
Official websiteHighfields Capital Management's top stock picks
{{Hedge funds
Hedge funds