JULIAN Robertson, it seems, is not a happy man just now. Who's Julian Robertson? He's the man who runs Tiger Management, the American hedge fund which is trying to unload its remaining 40 million shares in Jefferson Smurfit, and is not finding it very easy to find buyers.

Hedge funds are traditionally low on equity and pretty high on gearing, and tend to manage their investments pretty actively.

After building up a stake in Smurfit of more than 8 per cent, Tiger has turned against the stock in recent months and Robertson is thought to have been one of the shareholders who pressed Michael Smurfit most strongly to do a share buyback late last year.

Tiger got rid of some of its shares during that buyback but would have liked to see Smurfit buy back a lot more than 25 million shares.

Now Tiger is left with a 3.8 per cent stake in Smurfit it doesn't really want and is regarded in the market as a seller under pressure.

Irish institutions, however, are up to their gills in Smurfit shares so any buyer of the Tiger shares will probably have to come from abroad. Watch this space.