Tiger Seeks to Sell Private-Company Stakes Into Secondary Market

Tiger Global Management is seeking to offload hundreds of millions of dollars worth of private companies into the secondary market, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

(Bloomberg) — Tiger Global Management is seeking to offload hundreds of millions of dollars worth of private companies into the secondary market, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

The vast majority of assets at Chase Coleman’s firm, which managed $51 billion at the beginning of the year, is in startups. The investment firm has hired an adviser to explore options to sell a portion of that, the Financial Times reported Sunday.

A spokeswoman for the New York-based firm declined to comment.

Read more: Tiger Global Slashed Value of Venture Funds by a Third Last Year

Like many of its peers, Tiger Global is grappling with one of the most challenging periods that venture investors have faced in years. They poured money at a rapid pace into splashy startups, bidding up their valuations, only to get burned in last year’s tech swoon. Tiger Global marked down its venture investments by about 33% last year, resulting in a $23 billion decline in value.

Now, as fewer companies are going public, investors are turning to the secondary market to find an exit. They may seek liquidity for several reasons: to provide distributions to clients, fund add-on investments to existing portfolio companies or to ditch companies they don’t believe will bounce back fast enough.

Read more: Hedge Funds Gorged on Startups, and Nobody Agrees on Their Value

Tiger Global has invested in hundreds of venture-backed companies, including ByteDance, Snyk, Discord and Chime.

More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com