Clarium Returns Climb

Date: Friday, July 11, 2008
Author: Kaja Whitehouse, New York Post

Everything Silicon Valley venture capitalist Peter Thiel touches seems to turn to gold.

First there was Paypal. Then Facebook. Now add Thiel's latest venture to the list: hedge fund Clarium Capital Management.

For Clarium, 2008 could turn out to be one of its best ever, second only to 2003 returns of 65.6 percent.

The $6.4 billion fund, which Thiel started in 2002, returned a whopping 57.9 percent at the end of June, according to performance data obtained by The Post. And despite gut-wrenching turmoil in the markets, Clarium, which invests in everything from stocks to commodities, had just one bad month this year, when it was down 10 percent in March.

According to Hedge Fund Research, the average hedge fund was down 0.75 percent as of the end of June, the worst first half since the Chicago research firm began compiling the data in 1990.