American billionaire David Tepper’s share portfolio revealed

David Tepper is an American billionaire hedge fund manager and founder and president of Appaloosa Management.

He created Appaloosa Management in 1993 after being passed up for partner at Goldman Sachs numerous times.

Tepper has a net worth of $18.5 billion, ranking him 33rd on the Forbes 400 list of American billionaires.

Appaloosa started with $57 million in capital and now has $13 billion in assets under management, down from a peak of $20 billion. 

He is considered an expert in distressed debt investment. His investments following the 2008 market crash are considered some of the greatest trades ever made.

When panicked sellers were driving down the value of financial institutions like Bank of America and Citigroup, Tepper was investing in them.

The hedge fund also purchased nearly $2 billion in face-value commercial mortgage-backed securities floated by AIG.

When the U.S. government intervened in the survival of the banks, Appaloosa profited to the tune of $7 billion.

Tepper earned a bachelor’s degree in economics with honours from the University of Pittsburg and an MBA from Carnegie Mellon University.

Volatile results are a hallmark of Appaloosa, but the fund has achieved an average annual return of 30% since inception despite this volatility.

The fund lost 29% in 1998, the year of Russia’s default, and 27% during the financial crisis of 2008. It surged back in 2009 with a return of more than 130%.

To ensure performance isn’t diluted, Appaloosa has paid back $10 billion of capital to investors over its lifetime.

In 2019, Tepper announced plans to return outside money to investors and convert Appaloosa into a family office. Nearly 90% of the assets now belong to Tepper and other employees of the firm.

Appaloosa still has a negative outlook on markets and has not made acquisitions in recent months.

The fund cut its stake in Sysco and Mosaic in half and significantly cut its holdings in Meta, EQT Corp, Microsoft, Antero Resources, Salesforce, and Alibaba.

The table below shows Appaloosa’s share positions as of 30 September 2022.