The software sell-off hasn’t been pretty.
Thanks to fears that artificial intelligence would make software businesses obsolete, stocks like Salesforce, Oracle, Workday, and more have shed trillions of dollars in market cap.
Who in the $5.2 trillion hedge fund industry has been stung by this sell-off isn’t entirely clear. Still, a recent release of regulatory filings of funds’ holdings reveals which managers were most exposed to the sector at the start of the year. It’s unclear if these funds sold their stakes before the sell-off began or have weathered the losses.
One manager who stands out is Brennan Diaz’s Fernbridge Capital, a stockpicking fund with roughly $2 billion in assets. The firm began the year with more than 22% of its portfolio in Salesforce, its largest position. Its second-largest bet, which made up nearly 15% of its portfolio at the start of 2026, was in Workday.
The two stocks are down more than 25% to start the year, as of publication time.
Diaz, a former portfolio manager at Viking Global, started the fund in 2019, according to his LinkedIn profile, after a stint at Junto Capital, another fund started by a Viking alum.
Contour Asset Management, run by David Meyer, a former portfolio manager at European multistrategy fund Brummer & Partners, started new positions in Salesforce and Workday in the fourth quarter of 2025, filings show. The manager’s Salesforce bet was its third-largest holding at 2026’s onset.
Meanwhile, long-running activist fund ValueAct has Salesforce as its largest position, accounting for more than 11% of its portfolio, and added to its stake in the fourth quarter. The manager has been invested in the stock for years, and its chief investment officer, Mason Morfit, is on Salesforce’s board of directors.
Sean Ma, who ran Hong Kong-based Snow Lake Capital before relocating to California, started M37 Management to invest in AI and infrastructure. His firm bought 100,000 shares of Oracle in the fourth quarter, making Larry Ellison’s company Ma’s second-largest holding at the start of 2026.
The managers above did not respond to requests for comment.
At least one fund was skeptical enough about Oracle coming into the year that it was willing to bet heavily against the tech giant.
Kirkoswald’s Greg Coffey, known as the “Wizard of Oz” for his macro prowess, bought put options on Oracle worth close to $400 million in the fourth quarter, filings show. Put options are contracts that allow an investor to sell shares of a company at a set price for a limited period.
Managers use them to bet against stocks they expect to decline in price over the life of the contract, because the structure allows them to sell a stock for more than it is worth, generating a profit from the difference.
It’s unclear from the filings how long Kirkoswald’s options contracts were for or whether the firm has closed any positions. The firm declined to comment.
