Business

Klarman returns money to investors

The so-called smart money is bailing.

That seems to be the message from hedgie Seth Klarman, who is telling investors in his $28 billion Baupost Group that he’s going to give them some of their money back at the end of the year.

The fourth-largest hedge fund in the US wants to limit its size to $25 billion, according to Institutional Investor, which first reported the news.

Klarman, 56, a devotee of Warren Buffett’ s value investing philosophy, has been warning investors this was in the cards since April but did not detail how much he would give back.

The decision was made “to better match our assets under management with the opportunity set we see for new investments,” Klarman said in an investor letter.

The Boston money manager has had about 30 percent of his fund’s assets in cash over the past two years as he has long been concerned about the state of the financial markets and typically looks for deeply-discounted situations.

Last year, Klarman attacked the Fed’s monetary policies and was one of the many hedge funds that loaded up on gold—a losing position most of this year.

The fund has also trailed the broader stock market, gaining between 7.75 percent and 8.50 percent through July, according to Institutional Investor.

Two high-profile mining investments of Klarman’s have taken their lumps, too.

He is the second-largest investor — behind fellow hedgie John Paulson — in gold mining company Gabriel Resources, which has been under attack by environmentalists and downgraded by rating agencies recently.

Meanwhile, a controversial Canadian limestone quarry that one of Klarman’s private companies hoped to develop was canceled by the landowners last year.