Steven A. Cohen
Encyclopedia
Steven "Steve" A. Cohen (born 11 June 1956) is an American
hedge fund
manager. He is the founder of SAC Capital Advisors, a Stamford, Connecticut
-based hedge fund
focusing primarily on equity market strategies.
He has an estimated net worth of $9.3 billion as of September 2011, ranked by Forbes
as the 35th richest man in America.
, where his father was a dress manufacturer in Manhattan's garment district
, and his mother was a part-time piano teacher. He took a liking to poker as a high school student, often betting his own money in tournaments. Cohen credits the game to teaching him "how to take risks." Cohen received a B.S. in economics from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania
in 1978. He was a brother of Zeta Beta Tau
fraternity, Theta Chapter. While in school, a friend helped him open a brokerage account with $1,000 of his tuition money.
job as a junior trader in the options arbitrage
department at Gruntal & Co.
in 1978, where he eventually managed a $75 million portfolio and six traders.
His first day on the job at Gruntal & Co.
, he made an $8,000 profit. He would eventually go on to make the company around $100,000 a day. Cohen was running his own trading group at Gruntal by 1984, and continued running it until he started his own company, SAC.
In 1992, Cohen started SAC Capital Partners
with $20 million of his own money; today the firm manages $14 billion in equity. Originally known as a rapid-fire trader who never held trading positions for extended periods of time, Cohen now holds an increasing number of equities for longer periods of time.
estimates Cohen's fortune at $8.3 billion in September 2011, ranking him the 35th richest man in the United States.
In 1998, the Cohen family purchased a 35000 square feet (3,251.6 m²) home on 14 acres (56,656 m²) in Greenwich, Connecticut
.
His 2005 compensation was reportedly $1 billion, considerably higher than his 2004 compensation ($450 million), 2001 compensation ($428 million), and 2003 compensation ($350 million).
In addition, Cohen owns 7% of search engine Baidu
and owns 5% of SSD design firm OCZ Technology
.
, with his wife, Alexandra, and seven children — two being from a previous marriage.
Cohen serves on the Board of Trustees of Brown University
and the New York-based Robin Hood Foundation
.
In 1999, the publicity-shy trader granted one of his first on-the record interviews to Daniel Strachman for his book Getting Started In Hedge Funds (Wiley 2000).
In December 2009, Steven A Cohen and his brother Donald T Cohen were sued by Steven's ex-wife Patricia Cohen for racketeering and insider trading
charges. On March 30, 2011, the United States District Court in Lower Manhattan dismissed the case, saying Ms. Cohen’s claims amounted to little more than speculation and rumor.
Cohen owns between 4.7% and 5.9% of the stock of Sotheby's auction house, which has been described as a "significant stake."
He is reportedly building a private museum for some of his artwork on his Greenwich property. In the winter of 2005, it became known that in 1999 Cohen had bought Edvard Munch
's "Madonna". Reportedly, this was for $11.5 million, a record price for any Munch painting to this date.
His tastes in collecting changed "quickly" from Impressionist painters to contemporary art. He also collects 'trophy' art—signature works by famous artists—including a Pollock
"drip" painting from David Geffen
for $52 million and Damien Hirst
's The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living
, a piece that the artist had bought back from Charles Saatchi
for $8 million. In the last two years, he reportedly paid $25 million each for a Warhol and a Picasso. He is a top patron of the Marianne Boesky art gallery.
In 2006, Cohen remarked that repairing his suspended shark artwork, a cost estimated to be a minimum of $100,000, was an "inconsequential" expense. Since the shark itself is over 10 years old, it has begun to rot and requires replacement. The replacement shark has already been caught; once the exhibit is fixed, Cohen will have it moved into his SAC office. Cohen has also placed Marc Quinn's Self
, a head sculpture made of frozen blood, in the SAC lobby.
In addition, in 2006 Cohen bought a landscape
entitled "Police Gazette” by artist Willem de Kooning
for $63.5 million from David Geffen
. Also in 2006, Cohen attempted to make the most expensive art purchase in history when he offered to purchase Picasso's Le Reve from casino mogul Steve Wynn
for $139 million. Just days before the painting was to be transported to Cohen, Wynn, who suffers from poor vision, accidentally thrust his elbow through the painting while showing it to a group of acquaintances inside of his office at Wynn Las Vegas
. The purchase was cancelled, and Wynn still holds the painting. In November 2006, Cohen purchased another Willem de Kooning
painting, Woman III
, from David Geffen
for $137.5 million.
list of most influential people.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
hedge fund
Hedge fund
A hedge fund is a private pool of capital actively managed by an investment adviser. Hedge funds are only open for investment to a limited number of accredited or qualified investors who meet criteria set by regulators. These investors can be institutions, such as pension funds, university...
manager. He is the founder of SAC Capital Advisors, a Stamford, Connecticut
Stamford, Connecticut
Stamford is a city in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. According to the 2010 census, the population of the city is 122,643, making it the fourth largest city in the state and the eighth largest city in New England...
-based hedge fund
Hedge fund
A hedge fund is a private pool of capital actively managed by an investment adviser. Hedge funds are only open for investment to a limited number of accredited or qualified investors who meet criteria set by regulators. These investors can be institutions, such as pension funds, university...
focusing primarily on equity market strategies.
He has an estimated net worth of $9.3 billion as of September 2011, ranked by Forbes
Forbes
Forbes is an American publishing and media company. Its flagship publication, the Forbes magazine, is published biweekly. Its primary competitors in the national business magazine category are Fortune, which is also published biweekly, and Business Week...
as the 35th richest man in America.
Early life
Cohen grew up in Great Neck, New YorkGreat Neck, New York
The term Great Neck is commonly applied to a peninsula on the North Shore of Long Island, which includes the village of Great Neck, the village of Great Neck Estates, the village of Great Neck Plaza, and others, as well as an area south of the peninsula near Lake Success and the border of Queens...
, where his father was a dress manufacturer in Manhattan's garment district
Garment District, Manhattan
The Garment District, also known as the Garment Center, the Fashion District, or the Fashion Center, is a neighborhood located in the Manhattan borough of New York City. The dense concentration of fashion-related uses give the neighborhood, which is generally considered to span between Fifth Avenue...
, and his mother was a part-time piano teacher. He took a liking to poker as a high school student, often betting his own money in tournaments. Cohen credits the game to teaching him "how to take risks." Cohen received a B.S. in economics from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...
in 1978. He was a brother of Zeta Beta Tau
Zeta Beta Tau
Zeta Beta Tau was founded in 1898 as the nation's first Jewish fraternity, although it is no longer sectarian. Today the merged Zeta Beta Tau Brotherhood is one of the largest, numbering over 140,000 initiated Brothers, and over 90 chapter locations.-Founding:The Zeta Beta Tau fraternity was...
fraternity, Theta Chapter. While in school, a friend helped him open a brokerage account with $1,000 of his tuition money.
Business
After Wharton, Cohen got a Wall StreetWall Street
Wall Street refers to the financial district of New York City, named after and centered on the eight-block-long street running from Broadway to South Street on the East River in Lower Manhattan. Over time, the term has become a metonym for the financial markets of the United States as a whole, or...
job as a junior trader in the options arbitrage
Options arbitrage
Options arbitrage trades are commonly performed by floor traders in the options market to earn small profits with very little or zero risk.Traders perform conversions when options are relatively overpriced by purchasing stock and selling the equivalent options position. When the options are...
department at Gruntal & Co.
Gruntal & Co.
Gruntal & Co. was a boutique investment banking and brokerage firm based in New York City. Prior to its acquisition in 2002, the firm was among the oldest independent investment banking houses in the U.S....
in 1978, where he eventually managed a $75 million portfolio and six traders.
His first day on the job at Gruntal & Co.
Gruntal & Co.
Gruntal & Co. was a boutique investment banking and brokerage firm based in New York City. Prior to its acquisition in 2002, the firm was among the oldest independent investment banking houses in the U.S....
, he made an $8,000 profit. He would eventually go on to make the company around $100,000 a day. Cohen was running his own trading group at Gruntal by 1984, and continued running it until he started his own company, SAC.
In 1992, Cohen started SAC Capital Partners
SAC Capital Partners
SAC Capital Advisors is a $14 billion dollar group of hedge funds founded by Steven A. Cohen in 1992. The firm employs approximately 800 people across its offices located in Stamford, Connecticut and New York City with international satellite offices...
with $20 million of his own money; today the firm manages $14 billion in equity. Originally known as a rapid-fire trader who never held trading positions for extended periods of time, Cohen now holds an increasing number of equities for longer periods of time.
Wealth
Forbes MagazineForbes
Forbes is an American publishing and media company. Its flagship publication, the Forbes magazine, is published biweekly. Its primary competitors in the national business magazine category are Fortune, which is also published biweekly, and Business Week...
estimates Cohen's fortune at $8.3 billion in September 2011, ranking him the 35th richest man in the United States.
In 1998, the Cohen family purchased a 35000 square feet (3,251.6 m²) home on 14 acres (56,656 m²) in Greenwich, Connecticut
Greenwich, Connecticut
Greenwich is a town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. As of the 2010 census, the town had a total population of 61,171. It is home to many hedge funds and other financial service companies. Greenwich is the southernmost and westernmost municipality in Connecticut and is 38+ minutes ...
.
His 2005 compensation was reportedly $1 billion, considerably higher than his 2004 compensation ($450 million), 2001 compensation ($428 million), and 2003 compensation ($350 million).
In addition, Cohen owns 7% of search engine Baidu
Baidu
Baidu, Inc. , simply known as Baidu and incorporated on January 18, 2000, is a Chinese web services company headquartered in the Baidu Campus in Haidian District, Beijing, People's Republic of China....
and owns 5% of SSD design firm OCZ Technology
OCZ Technology
OCZ Technology is a manufacturer of computer hardware based in San Jose, California, USA. Since entering the memory market in 2002, OCZ has targeted its products primarily at the computer hardware enthusiast market, first producing performance DDR RAM, Video Cards, USB drives, and various Cooling...
.
Personal life
Cohen lives in Greenwich, ConnecticutGreenwich, Connecticut
Greenwich is a town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. As of the 2010 census, the town had a total population of 61,171. It is home to many hedge funds and other financial service companies. Greenwich is the southernmost and westernmost municipality in Connecticut and is 38+ minutes ...
, with his wife, Alexandra, and seven children — two being from a previous marriage.
Cohen serves on the Board of Trustees of Brown University
Brown University
Brown University is a private, Ivy League university located in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. Founded in 1764 prior to American independence from the British Empire as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations early in the reign of King George III ,...
and the New York-based Robin Hood Foundation
Robin Hood Foundation
The Robin Hood Foundation is a charitable organization, which attempts to alleviate problems caused by poverty in New York, United States.-History:Founded in 1988, Robin Hood was the brainchild of hedge fund manager Paul Tudor Jones...
.
In 1999, the publicity-shy trader granted one of his first on-the record interviews to Daniel Strachman for his book Getting Started In Hedge Funds (Wiley 2000).
In December 2009, Steven A Cohen and his brother Donald T Cohen were sued by Steven's ex-wife Patricia Cohen for racketeering and insider trading
Insider trading
Insider trading is the trading of a corporation's stock or other securities by individuals with potential access to non-public information about the company...
charges. On March 30, 2011, the United States District Court in Lower Manhattan dismissed the case, saying Ms. Cohen’s claims amounted to little more than speculation and rumor.
Art collector
Cohen began collecting art in 2000, and over the past several years has become a prominent collector, appearing on Art News magazine's "Top 10" list of biggest-spending art collectors around the world each year since 2002, and Forbes magazine's "Top Billionaire Art Collectors" list in 2005. To date, Cohen has bought around $700 million worth of artwork; in 2003, the New York Times reported that in a five-year period, Cohen spent 20% of his income at art auctions.Cohen owns between 4.7% and 5.9% of the stock of Sotheby's auction house, which has been described as a "significant stake."
He is reportedly building a private museum for some of his artwork on his Greenwich property. In the winter of 2005, it became known that in 1999 Cohen had bought Edvard Munch
Edvard Munch
Edvard Munch was a Norwegian Symbolist painter, printmaker and an important forerunner of expressionist art. His best-known composition, The Scream, is part of a series The Frieze of Life, in which Munch explored the themes of love, fear, death, melancholia, and anxiety.- Childhood :Edvard Munch...
's "Madonna". Reportedly, this was for $11.5 million, a record price for any Munch painting to this date.
His tastes in collecting changed "quickly" from Impressionist painters to contemporary art. He also collects 'trophy' art—signature works by famous artists—including a Pollock
Jackson Pollock
Paul Jackson Pollock , known as Jackson Pollock, was an influential American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. During his lifetime, Pollock enjoyed considerable fame and notoriety. He was regarded as a mostly reclusive artist. He had a volatile personality, and...
"drip" painting from David Geffen
David Geffen
David Geffen is an American record executive, film producer, theatrical producer and philanthropist. Geffen is noted for creating Asylum Records in 1970, Geffen Records in 1980, and DGC Records in 1990...
for $52 million and Damien Hirst
Damien Hirst
Damien Steven Hirst is an English artist, entrepreneur and art collector. He is the most prominent member of the group known as the Young British Artists , who dominated the art scene in Britain during the 1990s. He is internationally renowned, and is reportedly Britain's richest living artist,...
's The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living
The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living
The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living is an artwork created in 1991 by Damien Hirst, an English artist and a leading member of the "Young British Artists" . It consists of a tiger shark preserved in formaldehyde in a vitrine. It was originally commissioned in 1991 by...
, a piece that the artist had bought back from Charles Saatchi
Charles Saatchi
Charles Saatchi is the co-founder with his brother Maurice of the global advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi, and led that business - the world's largest advertising agency in the 1980s - until they were forced out in 1995. In the same year the Saatchi brothers formed a new agency called M&C...
for $8 million. In the last two years, he reportedly paid $25 million each for a Warhol and a Picasso. He is a top patron of the Marianne Boesky art gallery.
In 2006, Cohen remarked that repairing his suspended shark artwork, a cost estimated to be a minimum of $100,000, was an "inconsequential" expense. Since the shark itself is over 10 years old, it has begun to rot and requires replacement. The replacement shark has already been caught; once the exhibit is fixed, Cohen will have it moved into his SAC office. Cohen has also placed Marc Quinn's Self
Marc Quinn
Marc Quinn is a British artist and part of the group known as Britartists or YBAs . He is known for Alison Lapper Pregnant , Self , and Garden .He is one of the Young British...
, a head sculpture made of frozen blood, in the SAC lobby.
In addition, in 2006 Cohen bought a landscape
Landscape
Landscape comprises the visible features of an area of land, including the physical elements of landforms such as mountains, hills, water bodies such as rivers, lakes, ponds and the sea, living elements of land cover including indigenous vegetation, human elements including different forms of...
entitled "Police Gazette” by artist Willem de Kooning
Willem de Kooning
Willem de Kooning was a Dutch American abstract expressionist artist who was born in Rotterdam, the Netherlands....
for $63.5 million from David Geffen
David Geffen
David Geffen is an American record executive, film producer, theatrical producer and philanthropist. Geffen is noted for creating Asylum Records in 1970, Geffen Records in 1980, and DGC Records in 1990...
. Also in 2006, Cohen attempted to make the most expensive art purchase in history when he offered to purchase Picasso's Le Reve from casino mogul Steve Wynn
Steve Wynn (developer)
Stephen Alan "Steve" Wynn is an American business magnate who played a pivotal role in the 1990s resurgence and expansion of the Las Vegas Strip...
for $139 million. Just days before the painting was to be transported to Cohen, Wynn, who suffers from poor vision, accidentally thrust his elbow through the painting while showing it to a group of acquaintances inside of his office at Wynn Las Vegas
Wynn Las Vegas
Wynn Las Vegas is a resort and casino located on the Las Vegas Strip in Paradise, Nevada. The US $2.7 billion resort is named after casino developer Steve Wynn and is the flagship property of Wynn Resorts Limited. The resort covers . It is located on Las Vegas Boulevard and Sands Avenue Wynn Las...
. The purchase was cancelled, and Wynn still holds the painting. In November 2006, Cohen purchased another Willem de Kooning
Willem de Kooning
Willem de Kooning was a Dutch American abstract expressionist artist who was born in Rotterdam, the Netherlands....
painting, Woman III
Woman III
Woman III is a painting by abstract expressionist painter Willem de Kooning. Woman III is one of a series of six paintings by de Kooning done between 1951 and 1953 in which the central theme was a woman...
, from David Geffen
David Geffen
David Geffen is an American record executive, film producer, theatrical producer and philanthropist. Geffen is noted for creating Asylum Records in 1970, Geffen Records in 1980, and DGC Records in 1990...
for $137.5 million.
Recognition
Dubbed "the hedge fund king" in a 2006 Wall Street Journal article, Time Magazine ranked him 94th in 2007 on its annual Time 100Time 100
Time 100 is an annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world, as assembled by Time. First published in 1999 as a result of a debate among several academics, the list has become an annual event.-History and format:...
list of most influential people.
External links
- An art shark on the trading floor
- A New Prince of Wall Street Buys Up Art - New York Times article profiling Cohen's art collection