Fund’s like Seth Klarman’s Baupost—normally closed to new capital—are now making an exception due to the “massive drop in asset prices catalyzed by the novel coronavirus pandemic,” which has sent them on a hunt for capital. This according to a recent article in Institutional Investor.
For Baupost, this means “inviting existing investors to add to their positions and weighing the addition of new clients”—for the first time in nearly a decade. The article cites The Children’s Investment Fund as a second example–founder Chris Hohn is reportedly telling investors that he’s putting money to work in depressed stock markets given how cheap equities are.
“Institutions and the ultra-wealthy may have a greater chance of getting access for the first time to these sought-after funds,” the article says, “but it still won’t be easy or guaranteed.”
The article adds that “those unwilling to pay management fees on cash holdings need not apply,” noting that Baupost keeps a “tremendous amount of capital uninvested, which irks some allocators but is core to the firm’s value-oriented strategy.”