Steven A. Cohen (born June 11, 1956) is an American hedge fund manager and owner of the New York Mets of Major League Baseball since September 14, 2020, owning roughly 97.2% of the team. He is the founder of hedge fund Point72 Asset Management and now-closed S.A.C. Capital Advisors, both based in Stamford, Connecticut.
In 2013, the Cohen-founded S.A.C. Capital Advisors pleaded guilty to insider trading and agreed to pay $1.8 billion in fines ($900 million in forfeiture and $900 million in fines) in one of the biggest criminal cases against a hedge fund. Cohen was prohibited from managing outside money for two years as part of the settlement reached in the civil case over his accountability for the scandal. The hedge fund agreed to plead guilty to wire fraud and four counts of securities fraud and to close its doors to outside investors.
Cohen loosely inspired the character Bobby Axelrod, played by Damian Lewis, on the Showtime series Billions.
The majority of Cohen’s fortune is derived from his holdings in hedge funds operated by Point72 Asset Management. The firm had $30.6 billion in assets under management in July 2023, according to the firm’s website, of which about $10 billion belongs to Cohen according to Bloomberg calculations.
Artworks he owns were valued at about $1 billion in 2015, according to two people familiar with his assets who asked not to be identified because the collection is private. Personal assets, including a 14-acre estate in Greenwich, Connecticut, are valued at about $400 million.
The billionaire owns 95% of the New York Mets, according to a Bloomberg News report. The team is valued based on an March 2023 analysis by sports media firm Sportico.
Cohen’s firm — then known as SAC Capital Advisors — agreed in November 2013 to plead guilty to securities and wire fraud, pay $1.8 billion in fines and forfeitures, and stop managing money for outside investors.
According to Bloomberg News reporting in April 2018, Cohen pulled out close to $3 billion from Point72 Asset Management for taxes. He raised about $10 billion in the three years after re-opening to outside clients in 2018 following a Securities and Exchange Commission ban.
A spokesman for Cohen declined to comment on Cohen’s wealth in October 2022.
Biography
Early life and education
He left Gruntal in 1992 and started hedge fund operator SAC Capital Advisors with $25 million, much of it his own money. The company had average annual returns of about 30 percent before fees, which on some funds are as high as 3 percent of assets and 50 percent of profits. His best year was 2000, when SAC returned 73.4 percent before fees.
SAC Capital pled guilty in 2013 to securities fraud and agreed to pay a $1.8 billion fine in relation to insider trading by one of its portfolio managers. Cohen wasn’t charged with any wrongdoing while accepting an SEC ban on his managing outside money until 2018. He agreed to convert SAC to a family office, which he renamed Point72 Asset Management. The firm began managing outside money again in 2018.Cohen began buying art in the 1990s, and now owns one of the most valuable collections in the world. He owns impressionist paintings by Vincent van Gogh and Claude Monet, as well as contemporary pieces by Jeff Koons and Gerhard Richter.He bought a stake in the New York Mets baseball team for $20 million in 2012, and lost a bid to buy the Los Angeles Dodgers to a group headed by Guggenheim Partners and Magic Johnson. In October 2020 he purchased an additional 87% of the Mets at a valuation of about $2.42 billion according to a report in Sportico.His marriage to first wife, Patricia Finke, ended in 1990. Nineteen years later, she accused him in federal court of hiding assets during their divorce. The suit was later dismissed. She is appealing that decision. He met Alexandra Garcia through a dating service in 1992. The couple lives in Greenwich, Connecticut. Cohen has seven children.
Wealth
In 2016, Forbes Magazine estimated Cohen’s fortune at $13 billion, ranking him the 30th richest person in the United States. Cohen was dubbed “the hedge fund king” in a 2006 The Wall Street Journal article. His 2005 compensation was reportedly $1 billion, considerably higher than his 2001 compensation of $428 million. In February 2015, Forbes listed Cohen as the highest-earning hedge fund manager in 2014. In December 2013, Cohen’s New York penthouse in the Bloomberg Tower was listed with an initial sale price of $115 million. According to Institutional Investor, Cohen made an estimated $1.7 billion in 2020.
Milestones
- 1956 Steven Cohen is born in Great Neck, New York, the third of eight children.
- 1978 Graduates from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.
- 1978 Starts working as an options trader at brokerage Gruntal & Co.
- 1979 Marries Patricia Finke. The couple have two children.
- 1984 Takes over his own trading division at Gruntal.
- 1992 Starts SAC Capital Partners with $25 million of his own money.
- 2009 Sued by ex-wife, who accuses him of hiding assets during divorce.
- 2011 Deposed by SEC in insider trading probe involving former employees.
- 2013 SAC agrees to pay $1.8 billion to settle fraud charges, admit insider trading.
- 2016 Forms Stamford Harbor Capital to invest private funds.
- 2020 Buys the New York Mets baseball team for $2.4 billion.
