General
August 14, 2021
6 minutes read

Markets: George Soros Sells Shares Bought During Archegos Crash

In the equities markets, the name George Soros is a force to reckon with. He’s a legendary hedge fund honcho…

In the equities markets, the name George Soros is a force to reckon with. He’s a legendary hedge fund honcho who made a big fortune with a series of investments before retiring from the hedge fund rat race and converting his fund into a family office in 2011, at a time of regulatory scrutiny for big hedge funds.

Still, the family office named Soros Fund Management has been active in the US markets. This year, its activity was in the spotlight as it loaded up on shares sold off in blocks during the implosion of Archegos, a secretive family office that made highly leveraged investments and then defaulted on margin calls, forcing lenders to sell its assets.

At its peak, Archegos had a reported $120bn worth of securities, mostly on borrowed money. With leverage that large, the fund’s implosion caused its lender banks to lose big money, in fact over $10bn.

As an opportunistic investor, Soros’s family office saw it fit to buy shares on the cheap when Archegos’ bank lenders began selling off its assets in blocks. Soros Fund Management loaded up on equities like ViacomCBS, Baidu, and Vipshop which were major holdings of Archegos.

Now, just a few months after, Soros Fund Management has exited the positions it loaded up at cheaper prices. The exits were revealed in the fund’s latest 13-F filing, which showed that it sold $194mn of ViacomCBS stock, $77mn of Baidu, and $46mn of Vipshop. It also sold its significant positions in Tencent Music and Discovery Inc.

The respective units of shares liquidated by Soros are nearly identical in size to what the fund revealed it bought in its 13-F filing for this year’s first quarter. Now, its just-released filing for the second quarter showed it exited those positions.

From its latest filing, it’s also revealed that Soros Fund Management increased its stake in tech giant Amazon Inc and bought new positions such as Proterra, an electric bus maker, and Airbnb, the home listings giant. The fund also acquired positions in several special-purpose acquisition companies (SPACs).