Michael Steinhardt
Michael H. Steinhardt is an American investor, hedge fund manager, and philanthropist. In 1967, he founded a hedge fund, Steinhardt Partners, that averaged an annualized return for its clients of 24.5% from 1967 to 1978. His fund lost 1/3 of its value in the 1994 bond market crisis. In 1995, he closed his fund stating, "I thought there must be something more virtuous, more ennobling to do with one's life than make rich people richer," before making a 2004 comeback to head WisdomTree Investments, a fund with nearly US$43 billion in assets under management.
In a January 2014 article by Bloomberg, he was referred to as "Wall Street's greatest trader." Forbes Magazine reported his net worth at $1.1 billion as of October 2018.
Early life and education
Steinhardt earned a BS at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, graduating in 1960. He started his career working for the mutual fund Calvin Bullock and the brokerage firm Loeb, Rhoades & Co.. Steinhardt's father was his first investment client giving his son envelopes stuffed with cash to put in the stock market giving him seed money to begin his investment career.Investment career
Early career
Working as an analyst at Loeb, Rhoades & Co., Steinhardt followed the conglomerate industry, which included companies such as Automatic Sprinkler, City Investing, and the best-known conglomerate of its day, Gulf+Western.Steinhardt Partners
In 1967, using earnings from his investments, Steinhardt founded the hedge fund Steinhardt, Fine, and Berkowitz with co-investors William Salomon, former managing partner of Salomon Brothers and Jack Nash, founder of Odyssey Partners. Steinhardt Partners averaged an annualized return for its clients of 24.5%, after a 1% management fee and a "performance fee" of 15% of all annual gains, realized and unrealized, nearly triple the annualized performance of the S&P 500 Index over the same timeframe. After decades of successfully managing the fund, Steinhardt and his firm were investigated for allegedly trying to manipulate the short-term Treasury Note market in the early 1990s. He personally paid 75% of a total fine of $70 million as part of settlement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and Department of Justice. His firm made $600 million on the Treasury positions. In his book, "No Bull," Steinhardt said he did nothing wrong, but merely settled the case in order to "move on." Following a negative performance in his hedge fund in 1994, Steinhardt Partners enjoyed an excellent 1995, with performance in line with its historical record. The hedge fund closed and distributed all monies to its limited partners at the end of 1995.WisdomTree Investments
In 2004, Steinhardt came out of retirement to work for Index Development Partners, Inc., now known as WisdomTree Investments. He is chairman of WisdomTree, which offers dividend and earnings-based index funds rather than traditional index funds based on market capitalization. As of July 2018, WisdomTree had $41.2 billion under management. During the fall of 2007 and 2008, WisdomTree's growth stagnated, as the stock market, especially the financial sector, in which WisdomTree's dividend-based funds are overweighted, tanked, as did WisdomTree's stock. However, in recent months, as the WisdomTree funds tended to outperform their "bogies," asset growth resumed its earlier pace and its stock price appreciated accordingly.Personal life
In 1967, Steinhardt met his future wife Judy in a car pool he organized. During one of the carpools into New York City, he mentioned the name of the grain elevator company Colorado Milling and Grain Elevator. Judy mentioned the company to her father who invested in the company and made a substantial profit after Colorado Milling was acquired by Great Western Sugar in 1968; the merged company was renamed Great Western United. Judy is the chairwoman of New York University's Institute of Fine Arts and of the American Friends of the Israel Museum. They have three children: David, Daniel and Sara. His daughter, Sara, a former journalist and parenting columnist for The New York Sun, is married to Mark Bloom and is the president of the Hebrew Language Academy Charter School in Brooklyn.In Sebastian Mallaby's 2010 book entitled More Money Than God: Hedge Funds and the Making of a New Elite, he dedicated a chapter to Michael Steinhardt. He described Steinhardt as a "lover of botany and a collector of exotic fauna," living in his retirement "on his country estate an hour's drive north of New York City." Mallaby includes a photo of Steinhardt "dancing on his estate opposite... an elegant blue crane... that had taken to courting him with a graceful gavotte."
In 2001, Steinhardt published an autobiography: No Bull: My Life in and out of Markets. In this book, he addressed for the first time the question of his father, Sol Frank Steinhardt, who also went by the moniker "Red McGee." "Red" Steinhardt was convicted in 1958 on two counts of buying and selling stolen jewelry, and was sentenced to serve two 5-to-10 year terms, to run consecutively, in the New York State prison system. In his book, Steinhardt describes how his father bankrolled his early forays into the stock market by giving him envelopes stuffed with $10,000 in cash and sometimes much more than that. The book also suggests that Steinhardt's education at the Wharton School may have been paid for with illicit funds.
Steinhardt is an art collector, especially of antiquities. Highlights of his Judaica collection are viewable online. A special exhibition, "Ancient Art of the Cyclades", held at the Katonah Museum of Art included some pieces owned by him. He also sits on the American advisory board of Christie's, the art & antiques auction house. In January, 2018, investigators raided his New York apartment in order to seize looted antiquities
Political and economic views
Steinhardt is active in political circles ranging from centrist Democratic to neo-conservative, having been a past chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council and a board member of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, to which he donated $250,000 in 2002. According to Newsmeat.com, a tracker of publicly available campaign contributions, in the 2000 New York senatorial primary, he donated $1,000 to Republican Rudy Giuliani. When Mayor Giuliani dropped out of the race, Steinhardt contributed an equal amount to Giuliani's successor, Rick Lazio. Steinhardt also gave $1,000 to Lazio in the general election.Steinhardt is a strong supporter of the State of Israel, which he regards as the "Jewish miracle of the 20th century". He views Israel as "the most moral state on this planet", and in a 2017 interview said "The more one understands about Israel, the more comfortable one becomes with the politics of the Israeli government."
In 2001, Steinhardt made his foray into publishing, he along with several other investors including Conrad Black, founded the New York Sun, a niche New York City newspaper best known for its unflinching pro-Israel support and generally neo-conservative outlook. Steinhardt wrote a letter to President Clinton advocating the pardon of Marc Rich, calling him "my friend...who has been punished enough" Steinhardt was an early promoter of the possible presidential candidacy of Michael Bloomberg in 2008.
Wealth and philanthropy
Forbes Magazine reported Steinhardt's net worth at US$1.1 billion as of October 2018. The Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development at New York University bears his name in recognition of two $10 million donations. In the 1990s, Steinhardt bought and donated Steeple Jason Island and Grand Jason Island in the Falkland Islands to the Wildlife Conservation Society, along with US$425,000 for a research station to be named after himself and his wife. Steinhardt invested in baseball teams, owning part of the Miami Marlins and the Los Angeles Dodgers.Jewish causes
Steinhardt is chairman of the board at The Steinhardt Foundation for Jewish Life and Taglit-Birthright Israel. He also makes public appearances, speaking with young Jewish kids through organizations such as Ezra USA and RAJE. He has been an active philanthropist, donating over $125 million to Jewish causes. He and Charles Bronfman co-founded Taglit-Birthright Israel, which has to date sent over 500,000 young Jews aged 18–26 on a 10-day trip to Israel without charge. In 2009 Steinhardt gave the American Hebrew Academy $5 million. In addition, to help with its fundraising, AHA released an advertisement featuring his endorsement.Steinhardt has founded a network of Hebrew-language charter schools, which are secular and open to both Jews and non-Jews. He has said "these schools teach Hebrew in a way that is demonstrably superior to Jewish day schools".
Steinhardt is part of the "Mega Group" - a loosely organized club of 20 of wealthy and most influential Jewish businessmen. The "Mega Group" was formed by Leslie Wexner, chairman of Limited Inc. and Charles and Edgar Bronfman Sr., chairmen of Seagram.