Apple at the root of Tiger profits

New York star hedgie Chase Coleman is on his way to a standout year — but a good chunk of his returns are supported by one very Main Street investment: Apple.

Coleman’s Tiger Global has racked up gains of 21.4 percent through July, according to investor letters obtained by The Post, after posting a stellar 45 percent return in 2011, a year when most hedge funds lost money.

Lastyear’s lofty gains anointed Coleman, 36 — who came out of Julian Robertson’s Tiger Management— hedgefund royalty. He also is a descendant of Gotham City settler Peter Stuyvesant.

Apple was Tiger’s biggest public position at June 30, at $1.3 billion worth — almost double the value at Dec. 31. Apple shares have gained 62 percent this year.

Tiger Global also made a bundle by buying Facebook shares before it went public and selling nearly $1 billion worth into the May initial public offering, but most of those gains didn’t go to the $8billion hedge fund.

Tiger Global sold 23 million of its Facebook shares— some 43 percent of its stake — into the initial public offering, but most of those shares were in a separate private equity fund.

About 20 percent of the hedge fund’s returns through June 30 came from private equity holdings, a portion of which was Facebook.

Now Facebook is a smaller position for the hedge fund. At June 30, Tiger Global’s hedge fund owned 1.9 million Class A shares of Facebook worth $60 million, according to a recent regulatory filing. Its Class B shares a reprivate and not reported.

Tiger Global has also been adept at traversing the market’s ups and downs.

A third of this year’s performance can be attributed to placing short bets one quities, which pay off when stocks fall, according to the investor letter.

Most of the shorts were on telecomcompanies.

Tiger Global declined to comment.