Leon G. Cooperman (born April 25, 1943) is an American
billionaire investor and
hedge fund manager. He is the chairman and
CEO of Omega Advisors, a New York-based investment advisory firm managing over $3.3 billion in
assets under management, the majority consisting of his personal wealth.
In September 2016 the
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government, created in the aftermath of the Wall Street Crash of 1929. The primary purpose of the SEC is to enforce the law against market ...
charged Cooperman and Omega Advisors with
insider trading, more specifically for "trading stocks, bonds and
call options of Atlas Pipeline Partners in July 2010 on information he obtained from an executive at the company." Cooperman's firm agreed to a $4.9 million settlement with the SEC in May 2017 but admitted no wrong-doing. As part of the settlement, Cooperman and Omega agreed to be subject to a compliance monitor with access to their electronic communications and trading records and to submit monthly certifications that they had not engaged in insider trading until 2022.
Early life and education
Cooperman was born to a Jewish
family in the
South Bronx, New York City. He is the son of immigrants from Poland. Cooperman was the first in his family to earn a college degree.
As an undergraduate at
Hunter College, Cooperman joined and was an active member of the
Alpha Epsilon Pi
Alpha Epsilon Pi (), commonly known as AEPi, is a college fraternity founded at New York University in 1913 by Charles C. Moskowitz and ten other men. The fraternity has more than 150 active chapters across the United States, Canada, United K ...
. After graduating, he became a quality control engineer at
Xerox
Xerox Holdings Corporation (; also known simply as Xerox) is an American corporation that sells print and electronic document, digital document products and services in more than 160 countries. Xerox is headquartered in Norwalk, Connecticut (ha ...
in 1965.
Cooperman later received his
MBA
A Master of Business Administration (MBA; also Master's in Business Administration) is a postgraduate degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration such as accounti ...
from
Columbia Business School, graduating in 1967. He is also a
Chartered Financial Analyst
The Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) program is a postgraduate professional certification offered internationally by the American-based CFA Institute (formerly the Association for Investment Management and Research, or AIMR) to investment and fina ...
.
Investment career
Early career and Goldman Sachs
Directly after graduating from Columbia, Cooperman joined Goldman Sachs. He spent his first 22 years at Goldman in the Investment Research Department as partner-in-charge, co-chairman of the Investment Policy Committee and chairman of the Stock Selection Committee. In 1989, he became chairman and chief executive officer of Goldman Sachs Asset Management and was chief investment officer of the equity product line including managing the GS Capital Growth Fund, an open-end mutual fund, for one and one-half years.
While at
Goldman Sachs, for nine consecutive years, Cooperman was voted the number one portfolio strategist in the ''
Institutional Investor'' "All-America Research Team" survey.
At the end of 1991 after twenty-five years of service, Cooperman retired from his positions as a general partner of Goldman, Sachs & Co. and as chairman and chief executive officer of Goldman Sachs Asset Management.
Omega
After leaving Goldman Sachs, he organized a private investment partnership, Omega Advisors, Inc. Cooperman retired in 2016 and converted Omega to a
family office
A family office is a privately held company that handles investment management and wealth management for a wealthy family, generally one with at least $50-$100 million in investable assets, with the goal being to effectively grow and transfer ...
.
2016 SEC investigation
On September 21, 2016, Cooperman was charged with
insider trading by the
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government, created in the aftermath of the Wall Street Crash of 1929. The primary purpose of the SEC is to enforce the law against market ...
.
[SEC News Press Release: "SEC Charges Hedge Fund Manager Leon Cooperman With Insider Trading"](_blank)
September 21, 2016 He denied the charges. Cooperman faced criminal charges in a related parallel proceeding and has asserted his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination before a SEC hearing. In May 2017 Cooperman's firm agreed to a $4.9 million settlement with the SEC. As part of the agreement, Omega Advisers admitted no wrongdoing. As part of the settlement, Cooperman and Omega agreed to ongoing compliance monitoring until 2022.
The monitoring includes being subject to an onsite compliance monitor with access to their electronic communications and trading records.
In addition, Cooperman and Omega must submit monthly certifications that they were not aware of material nonpublic information prior to any securities trades.
Following the settlement, Cooperman commented: "The process in my opinion was totally abusive. It's a problem that the government should address," and "My lawyers told me that the probability of my winning would be overwhelmingly high, that if I didn't win it had nothing to do with the merits of the case," he said. SEC officials declined to comment.
Personal life
With his wife Toby, he has two sons, Wayne and Michael, and three grandchildren.
[New Jersey Jewish News: "Family's $5 million gift is devoted to continuity - Cooperman Fund will help Birthright, camps, and teen philanthropy" by Johanna Ginsberg]
February 10, 2010 Since the late 1970s, Cooperman has been a resident of the
Short Hills neighborhood of
Millburn, New Jersey
Millburn is a suburban township in Essex County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States census, the township's population was 20,149, reflecting an increase of 384 (+1.9%) from the 19,765 counted in the 2000 Census, which had ...
, but he spends the majority of his time in
Boca Raton, Florida. He has an
honorary doctorate
An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or ''ad hon ...
in finance from
Roger Williams University
Roger Williams University (RWU) is a private university in Bristol, Rhode Island. Founded in 1956, it was named for theologian and Rhode Island cofounder Roger Williams. The school enrolls over 5,000 students and employs over 480 academic st ...
in
Rhode Island
Rhode Island (, like ''road'') is a state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is the smallest U.S. state by area and the seventh-least populous, with slightly fewer than 1.1 million residents as of 2020, but it ...
.
In 2012, Cooperman was included in the
50 Most Influential list of ''
Bloomberg Markets
''Bloomberg Markets'' is a magazine published six times a year by Bloomberg L.P. as part of Bloomberg News. Aimed at global financial professionals, ''Bloomberg Markets'' publishes articles on the people and issues related to global financial ma ...
'' magazine. ''Forbes'' listed Cooperman as one of the 40 Highest-Earning hedge fund managers in 2013. In the following year, the publication listed him among the top 25.
Political and economic views
In recent years, Cooperman has primarily donated to Republican political campaigns.
In November 2011, Cooperman gained attention for an open letter to
U.S. President
The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States ...
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the ...
in which among other things charged the president with engaging in
class warfare
Class conflict, also referred to as class struggle and class warfare, is the political tension and economic antagonism that exists in society because of socio-economic competition among the social classes or between rich and poor.
The forms ...
.
In 2019, he criticized Democratic 2020 presidential candidate
Elizabeth Warren
Elizabeth Ann Warren ( née Herring; born June 22, 1949) is an American politician and former law professor who is the senior United States senator from Massachusetts, serving since 2013. A member of the Democratic Party and regarded as a ...
's proposal to implement a wealth tax. He said it would lead to "unnatural acts, be near impossible to police, and is probably unconstitutional."
He said that the stock market would drop by 25% if Warren was elected.
In an interview on CNBC, Cooperman criticized the potential Warren wealth tax and its implications on his billion dollar fortune. His criticism of the hypothetical tax increase was then used as part of a
Bernie Sanders 2020 presidential campaign advertisement.
During the January 2021
GameStop short squeeze
In January 2021, a short squeeze of the stock of the American video game retailer GameStop () and other securities took place, causing major financial consequences for certain hedge funds and large losses for short sellers. Approximately 140 ...
, Cooperman appeared on
CNBC
CNBC (formerly Consumer News and Business Channel) is an American basic cable business news channel. It provides business news programming on weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., Eastern Time, while broadcasting talk sho ...
to discuss the situation, angrily saying it was caused by "people sitting at home getting
checks from the Government". The checks were part of the United States response to the
COVID 19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...
. He also attacked
President Biden, for whom he said he had voted, regarding potential capital gains tax increases, saying "the fair share is a bullshit concept" and "it was just a way of
attacking wealthy people". CNBC later cut that portion of the video from their online article about his appearance.
Philanthropy
Signators of
The Giving Pledge
The Giving Pledge is a campaign to encourage extremely wealthy people to contribute a majority of their wealth to philanthropic causes. , the pledge has 236 signatories from 28 countries. Most of the signatories of the pledge are billionaires, a ...
, Cooperman and his wife joined the cause in 2010, which is a commitment by the world's wealthiest individuals and families to dedicate the majority of their wealth to charitable efforts.
Cooperman and his family committed $5 million in 2010 as a permanent fund intended to anchor activities supporting Jewish identity and continuity among young adults.
The Cooperman Family Fund for a Jewish Future endowment of
Birthright Israel
Taglit-Birthright Israel ( he, תגלית), also known as Birthright Israel or simply Birthright, is a not-for-profit educational organization that sponsors free ten-day heritage trips to Israel, Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights for young adult ...
, was the first endowment of this kind in the country.
Cooperman donated $25 million to his alma mater,
Columbia Business School, in 2011. The donation was given to support the construction of new facilities in
New York's Manhattanville neighborhood, including a new facility for Columbia's Graduate School of Business.
In April 2014, the Leon and Toby Cooperman Family Foundation pledged $25 million to the
Saint Barnabas Medical Center
Cooperman Barnabas Medical Center (CBMC), formerly Saint Barnabas Medical Center (SBMC), is a 597-bed non-profit major teaching hospital located in Livingston, New Jersey. An affiliate of RWJBarnabas Health (formerly known as Barnabas Health and ...
for the construction of a new 200,000 square-foot Cooperman Family Pavilion.
In September 2021, the Leon and Toby Cooperman Family Foundation donated $100 million to the
Saint Barnabas Medical Center
Cooperman Barnabas Medical Center (CBMC), formerly Saint Barnabas Medical Center (SBMC), is a 597-bed non-profit major teaching hospital located in Livingston, New Jersey. An affiliate of RWJBarnabas Health (formerly known as Barnabas Health and ...
which would be renamed to Cooperman Barnabas Medical Center.
Cooperman launched a scholarship funding program in 2015. The Cooperman College Scholars Fund assists high-achieving high school students pay for their college educations.
At launch, the Cooperman College Scholars Fund partnered with four colleges and universities in New Jersey and Pennsylvania:
The College of New Jersey
The College of New Jersey (TCNJ) is a public university in Ewing Township, New Jersey. It is part of New Jersey's public system of higher education. Established in 1855 as the New Jersey State Normal School, TCNJ was the first normal school, or ...
,
Rutgers
Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's College, and w ...
,
Rowan University
Rowan University is a public research university in Glassboro, New Jersey, with a medical campus in Stratford and medical and academic campuses in Camden. It was founded in 1923 as Glassboro Normal School on a site donated by 107 residents.
...
, and
Franklin & Marshall College
Franklin & Marshall College (F&M) is a private liberal arts college in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. It employs 175 full-time faculty members and has a student body of approximately 2,400 full-time students. It was founded upon the merger of Fran ...
.
He is also a founding Master Player of the
Portfolios with Purpose virtual stock trading contest.
He serves as a board member for the
Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation
The Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation (Damon Runyon) is an American not-for-profit cancer research organization focused on "discovering the talent to discover the cure". The organization states that its goals are to: "identify the best an ...
.
Cooperman is also a charitable member of the Songs of Love Foundation, a 501(c)(3) organization that records personalized music for those facing chronic illness.
On June 7, 2017, Cooperman presented a One Million Dollar Four-Year Challenge Grant from The Leon and Toby Cooperman Family Foundation.
References
External links
* https://www.omegaadvisers.com/
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cooperman, Leon G.
Living people
1943 births
American billionaires
American financiers
American people of Polish-Jewish descent
Businesspeople from New Jersey
Businesspeople from New York City
Columbia Business School alumni
Giving Pledgers
21st-century philanthropists
Goldman Sachs people
Hunter College alumni
Jewish American philanthropists
People from the Bronx
Xerox people
American chief executives of financial services companies
People from Millburn, New Jersey
Philanthropists from New York (state)
CFA charterholders
21st-century American Jews