Industry Investment management Website clarium.com Founder Peter Thiel Type Privately held company | AUM US$681 million Assets under management 681 million USD Founded 1998 | |
 | ||
Headquarters San Francisco, California, United States | ||
Clarium Capital Management LLC is an American investment management and hedge fund company pursuing a global macro strategy. Clarium was founded in San Francisco in 2002 by Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal and early investor in Facebook. Clarium's assets under management grew to $8 billion in 2008, after which a series of unprofitable investments and client redemptions resulted in its assets declining to between $300-400 million as of 2011.
Contents
Company
The company moved its headquarters from San Francisco to New York City so that it was closer to Wall Street. Clarium is an employee-owned firm that invests in public equity (primarily in micro-cap companies), fixed income, and hedging markets. The company's activities were temporarily put on hold while Thiel worked at PayPal, and then activities resumed in 2002. Unlike most funds, which charge clients about 2% of their total assets invested, Clarium charges a performance fee of 25% of the increase in the fund's net asset value. In June 2010 Thiel closed the New York office to consolidate the company and its employees into one location at its San Francisco office. The firm employs fundamental and quantitative analysis to make its investments. It also conducts in-house research to make its investments.
History
Through a series of correct bets in the energy markets that global demand would cause an oil shortage, Clarium's 2002 performance was reported as "impressive".
Recent performance 2008-2010
Clarium was down 4.5% in 2008, down 25% in 2009, and down 23% in 2010. For the first half of 2008, the fund had a YTD return of 57.9%. At the start of 2008, the fund had $4 billion in assets under management, raised to $7.8 billion in June 2008, then dropped to $1.5 billion in July 2009, after investors withdrew money from the fund. The fund lost most of its value in 2008 due to large bets against the US dollar, in the hopes that it would drop in value. The fund subsequently lost 13% in August 2008 and it lost 18% in October 2008. Although the fund eventually recovered, with losses of only 4.5% for 2008 compared to the average of 20% for other hedge funds, most investors had already pulled out their investments. Subsequent down years have reduced the fund's assets under management to $681 million as of December 2010. Clarium Capital Management was reported to have had big losses in 2010. The firm has continued to struggle with bets that it made on inflation and the US dollar.