If you never followed Steve Cohen’s life, but have watched HBO’s Billions, then you may have heard that the show is loosely based on Cohen.
Bad guy hedge funder worth personal billions being chased by the righteous charlatans at the SEC and the attorneys at the Southern District in NY.
In January, Cohen paid a huge fine to the SEC and agreed to a settlement that would not allow him to take outside money for two years if he acted in a supervisory role at the fund.
During this process Cohen had to scrap one of the most successful hedge funds in history, SAC Capital, and manage a family office called Point 72 Asset Management. This only managed Cohen’s own personal wealth and the wealth of his traders. Its called a family office.
So what does Cohen do? In January he files to open Stamford Harbor. He opens this office right across the street from Point 72 Asset Management. Some executives working for the new firm also have dual roles with Point 72. But guess what? He wont supervise.
James Cox, a Duke University law professor, said the development represented a “black eye” for the SEC, which agreed to a settlement that allowed Mr. Cohen to open a new fund as long as he wasn’t the supervisor of it.
The SEC declined to comment. The SEC agreement with Mr. Cohen requires that an independent consultant review any entity Mr. Cohen “directly or indirectly wholly owns or controls” until the end of 2017.
Despite years of investigations, prosecutors never charged Cohen himself with criminal charges. The government’s last effort, an SEC civil case for failure to supervise employees, weakened considerably after a 2014 appeals court ruling eventually forced the agency to cut half of its case.
Planning Ahead
But Mr. Cohen has been building in recent years an operation that could quickly transition to managing outside money,
This is genius on his part, just from the standpoint that people are talking about it and writing about it.
By the time he’s ready to open the doors to Stamford Harbor, billions will be waiting at his front door.
In another screw you to the bureaucrats that tried to finish him off, Cohen just launched a nonprofit Wednesday that aims to treat mental health issues among U.S. veterans.
The Cohen Veterans Network will be opening between 20 and 25 clinics across the U.S. over the next three to five years, an effort that will personally cost Cohen $275 million.