02 Nov Getting to Know the New Owner of the N.Y. Mets, Steve Cohen
FAST FACTS
Name: Steven A. Cohen
Born: June 11, 1956 (age 63 years), Great Neck, NY
Spouse: Alexandra Cohen (m. 1992), Patricia Cohen (m. 1979–1990)
Education: Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania (1978), John L Miller North High School
Job: American billionaire hedge fund manager, art-collector, and philanthropist. He is the founder of hedge fund Point72 Asset Management and now closed S.A.C. Capital Advisors, both based in Stamford, Connecticut.
Late Friday afternoon, fans of the New York Mets received the news they’d been waiting to hear for ages. The Wilpon era in Queens had finally run its beleaguered course. MLB owners voted to approve billionaire hedge fund manager Steve Cohen as the new owner of the New York Mets, it was announced Friday. The proposed purchase of 95% of the Mets by an entity of Cohen had already been approved by MLB’s ownership committee. Cohen needed 23 of the 30 clubs to sign off for the deal to be approved, and the vote was 26-4. The sale values the franchise at $2.4 billion to $2.5 billion. Cohen, 64, is CEO and president of Point72 Asset Management. The Mets’ ownership group had been headed by Fred Wilpon, his brother-in-law Saul Katz and Wilpon’s son Jeff, the team’s chief operating officer. The Wilpon and Katz families will retain 5% of the team after the sale, which is expected to be finalized within the next 10 days.
1. HE’S THE SECOND-RICHEST PERSON IN CONNECTICUT
Cohen’s net worth is estimated at $13.6 billion by Forbes, making him the second-richest Connecticut resident, trailing only fellow hedge fund manager Ray Dalio, who is worth an estimated $18.7 billion, according to Forbes. Nationally, Cohen ranks No. 35, on the Forbes 400 list.The resident of Greenwich, Connecticut, faced scrutiny when regulators levied a $1.8 billion fine and in 2016 forced the closure of his hedge fund S.A.C. Capital Advisors LLP, which pleaded guilty to insider trading charges. Cohen was not charged with insider trading, but he was barred from managing clients’ money for two years. Point72 lists more than 1,400 employees and about $14.6 billion in assets under management as of Oct. 1. The hedge fund’s website said that it uses fundamental investing strategies as well as “highly automated trading strategies,” in which computers carry out trades without human intervention.
2. HE’S A LIFELONG METS FAN
A Long Island native, Cohen grew up rooting for the Mets. “It has always been a dream of mine to be a majority owner of a Major League Baseball franchise,” he wrote in a note to investors Wednesday reviewed by Bloomberg News. The note reassured investors that Cohen would remain focused on “my first passion” of investing, but also said that “I look forward to seeing you at Mets games.” Cohen purchased a 4% stake in the Mets in 2012 for $20 million. Bloomberg News reported he plans to up that stake to 80% of the team.
3. HE’S AN AVID ART COLLECTOR
Besides baseball, Cohen is passionate about art, spending hundreds of millions of dollars for various pieces in his personal collection. His collection, valued at more than $1 billion, includes Swiss sculptor Alberto Giacometti’s “L’Homme au doigt,” or “Man Pointing,” purchased at auction in 2015 for $141.3 million, the most ever paid for a sculpture, and Pablo Picasso’s “Le Rêve,” or “The Dream,” which he bought from casino magnate Steve Wynn in 2013 for $155 million, the highest price ever paid for a piece of art by a U.S. collector at the time.
4. HIS GREENWICH ESTATE IS VALUED AT $23.1M
Cohen purchased his home on Crown Lane in Greenwich in 1998 for around $14.8 million, eventually expanding it to more than 35,000 square feet. “A full-size indoor basketball court was installed, as was a swimming pool enclosed in a glass pleasure dome,” according to an account in Vanity Fair. There is also a 6,734-square-foot ice-skating rink and a two-hole golf course. The compound includes a neighboring home he purchased in 2006 for $5 million.
5. GIVES MONEY TO CHARITY
His family’s charitable arm, the Steven and Alexandra Cohen Foundation, has donated to a variety of health-related philanthropies. In one high profile gift on Long Island, the foundation donated $50 million, prompting the former Schneider Children’s Hospital in New Hyde Park to be renamed the Steven and Alexandra Cohen Children’s Medical Center of New York.