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Druckenmiller Bets on China Tech as Former Boss Soros Buys Banks

Billionaire investor Stanley Druckenmiller placed fresh bets on Chinese Internet companies including Alibaba.

Druckenmiller Bets on China Tech as Former Boss Soros Buys Banks
Stanley Druckenmiller. (Photographer: Scott Eells/Bloomberg)

(Bloomberg) -- Billionaire investor Stanley Druckenmiller placed fresh bets on Chinese Internet companies including Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and added to tech positions in the first quarter even as he sold out of Facebook Inc.

His Duquesne Family Office held an Alibaba stake worth $120.7 million at the end of the first quarter, according to a filing Tuesday. The firm also showed new holdings in Tal Education Group, a Beijing-based provider of tutoring services, and online retailer Vipshop Holdings Ltd., while adding to existing holdings of JD.com Inc. and Amazon.com Inc.

Druckenmiller Bets on China Tech as Former Boss Soros Buys Banks

Druckenmiller, a former money manager for George Soros who helped engineer a $10 billion trade shorting the British pound in 1992, converted his hedge fund into a family office in 2010. At the end of the quarter, 43 percent of the publicly disclosed equity portfolio was invested in technology and 26 percent in consumer discretionary, which includes Chinese Internet companies.

Soros Fund Management is betting on the biggest U.S. banks, with new stakes in JPMorgan Chase & Co., Wells Fargo & Co. and Citigroup Inc., according to a separate filing. Soros also added to a position in Bank of America Corp. He cut retailers Overstock.com, Gap Inc. and American Eagle Outfitters Inc.

The investor converted his hedge fund into a family office in 2011. It oversees about $26 billion in assets, some allocated to outside managers. Since naming Dawn Fitzpatrick as chief investment officer in early 2017, Soros has been pulling more money back in-house.

Money managers who oversee more than $100 million in U.S. equities must file a Form 13F within 45 days of the end of each quarter to list their holdings in stocks that trade on U.S. exchanges, as well as options and convertible debt. The filings don’t show non-U.S. traded securities or wagers against stocks.

To contact the reporter on this story: Simone Foxman in New York at sfoxman4@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Pierre Paulden at ppaulden@bloomberg.net, Peter Eichenbaum

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