According to a regulatory filing on Friday, George Soros’ investment firm, Soros Fund Management, sold $194.4 million of ViacomCBS Inc, $77 million of Baidu Inc shares and $46.4 million of stock in Vipshop Holdings Ltd. Soros’ firm also liquidated positions in Discovery Inc and Tencent Music Entertainment Group.
Archegos, the family office that manages the personal assets of billionaire investor Bill Hwang, fell apart in the final week of March having amassed large leveraged positions in a concentrated portfolio of Chinese and US companies. In the three months through to June, Vipshop dropped 33%, while Tencent Music dropped 24%. Discovery Inc fell by 21%, while Baidu fell by 6.3%. According to Bloomberg, Soros Management Fund did not hold these companies’ shares prior to Archegos’ collapse.
At the height of its success, Archegos had over $20 billion of capital and total bets exceeding $120 billion. The portfolio fell apart in just a matter of days as investments tumbled. This triggered margin calls from banks, which then sold the stocks in big block trades. The shares were snapped up by hedge funds and other investment firms, however, the trades haven’t necessarily been successful.
