Louis Moore Bacon (born July 25, 1956) is an American investor, hedge fund manager, and philanthropist. He is the founder and chief executive of
Moore Capital Management
Moore Capital Management LP (MCM) is a New York-based, global investment management firm headquartered in New York, New York.Forbes Magazine
''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also rep ...
'' estimates his
net worth
Net worth is the value of all the non-financial and financial assets owned by an individual or institution minus the value of all its outstanding liabilities. Since financial assets minus outstanding liabilities equal net financial assets, net ...
to be US$1.81 billion, making him the 374th richest person on the Forbes 400 as of February 2017.
Early life and education
Bacon was born in
Raleigh, North Carolina
Raleigh (; ) is the capital city of the state of North Carolina and the seat of Wake County in the United States. It is the second-most populous city in North Carolina, after Charlotte. Raleigh is the tenth-most populous city in the Sout ...
on July 25, 1956. His father, Zachary Bacon Jr., founded real estate company Bacon & Co. and later led
Prudential Financial
Prudential Financial, Inc. is an American Fortune Global 500 and Fortune 500 company whose subsidiaries provide insurance, retirement planning, investment management, and other products and services to both retail and institutional customers t ...
’s and
Merrill Lynch
Merrill (officially Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated), previously branded Merrill Lynch, is an American investment management and wealth management division of Bank of America. Along with BofA Securities, the investment ba ...
Alexandria
Alexandria ( or ; ar, ٱلْإِسْكَنْدَرِيَّةُ ; grc-gre, Αλεξάνδρεια, Alexándria) is the second largest city in Egypt, and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast. Founded in by Alexander the Great, Alexandri ...
,
Virginia
Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth are ...
. He attended
Middlebury College
Middlebury College is a private liberal arts college in Middlebury, Vermont. Founded in 1800 by Congregationalists, Middlebury was the first operating college or university in Vermont. The college currently enrolls 2,858 undergraduates from all 5 ...
in Vermont where he received his BA in American literature, graduating in 1979. Bacon met Walter Frank while he was working on a fishing boat on
Long Island
Long Island is a densely populated island in the southeastern region of the U.S. state of New York, part of the New York metropolitan area. With over 8 million people, Long Island is the most populous island in the United States and the 18 ...
. He was given a job clerking at the specialist firm Walter N. Frank & Co during the summers of his college years. He subsequently received his MBA degree in finance at
Columbia Business School
Columbia Business School (CBS) is the business school of Columbia University, a private research university in New York City. Established in 1916, Columbia Business School is one of six Ivy League business schools and is one of the oldest bus ...
in 1981.
While at Columbia, Bacon traded commodities using a low interest loan he had received. During the first three semesters, he lost money and was forced to borrow money from his father to pay for necessities. He turned a profit during his fourth semester.
Investment career
After receiving 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 ...
, Bacon joined the sales and trading program at
Bankers Trust
Bankers Trust was a historic American banking organization. The bank merged with Alex. Brown & Sons in 1997 before being acquired by Deutsche Bank in 1999. Deutsche Bank sold the Trust and Custody division of Bankers Trust to State Street Corp ...
. Later he left the firm and returned to Walter N. Frank & Co. where he traded currencies. Bacon took a job on the floor of the
New York Cotton Exchange
The New York Cotton Exchange (NYCE) is a commodities exchange founded in 1870 by a group of one hundred cotton brokers and merchants in New York City. In 1998, the New York Board of Trade (NYBOT) became the parent company of the New York Cotton ...
, working as a "runner". Bacon later worked as a broker and trader of financial futures at
Shearson Lehman Brothers
Shearson was the name of a series of investment banking and retail brokerage firms from 1902 until 1994, named for Edward Shearson
In 1987 Bacon founded Remington Trading Partners. His market insights allowed him to profit during the market crash and subsequent rebound. In 1989, Bacon used his middle name when he founded
Moore Capital Management
Moore Capital Management LP (MCM) is a New York-based, global investment management firm headquartered in New York, New York.
In 2006, ''
Forbes
''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also r ...
'' magazine ranked Bacon as the 746th richest person in the world; in 2011 it ranked him as the 736th richest man. In 2010, the ''Denver Post'' reported that Bacon's net worth of $1.6 billion ranked him as the 238th richest American. In March 2010 ''Forbes Magazine'' estimated Bacon's net worth to be $1.5 billion, and ranked him as the 655th richest person in the world.
In December 2013, Bacon purchased Taos Ski Valley from the Blake family, who had owned it since 1954.
As of March 2022, Bacon holds a substantial interest in EV startup, Fisker Inc. with Bacon's Moore Capital Management holding 8.45 million Fisker shares.
Lawsuits
Libel suit
In May 2011, Bacon obtained a court order in Great Britain, where he owned property, compelling the
Wikimedia Foundation
The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., or Wikimedia for short and abbreviated as WMF, is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization headquartered in San Francisco, California and registered as a charitable foundation under local laws. Best know ...
,
WordPress
WordPress (WP or WordPress.org) is a free and open-source content management system (CMS) written in hypertext preprocessor language and paired with a MySQL or MariaDB database with supported HTTPS. Features include a plugin architectu ...
and the ''Denver Post'' to reveal the identity of anonymous persons who allegedly defamed him on their websites. The court granted Bacon's application to serve a
Norwich Pharmacal Order
A Norwich Pharmacal order is a court order for the disclosure of documents or information that is available in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It is granted against a third party which has been innocently mixed up in wrongdoing, forcing the disclos ...
by email against these websites. Bacon sought the order so that he could launch defamation proceedings against online commenters he alleged to have posted
libelous
Defamation is the act of communicating to a third party false statements about a person, place or thing that results in damage to its reputation. It can be spoken (slander) or written (libel). It constitutes a tort or a crime. The legal defin ...
material about him on these websites.
In May 2011, the High Court in London granted Bacon a court order to obtain information from the
Wikimedia Foundation
The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., or Wikimedia for short and abbreviated as WMF, is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization headquartered in San Francisco, California and registered as a charitable foundation under local laws. Best know ...
, ''
The Denver Post
''The Denver Post'' is a daily newspaper and website published in Denver, Colorado. As of June 2022, it has an average print circulation of 57,265. In 2016, its website received roughly six million monthly unique visitors generating more than 13 ...
'', and
WordPress
WordPress (WP or WordPress.org) is a free and open-source content management system (CMS) written in hypertext preprocessor language and paired with a MySQL or MariaDB database with supported HTTPS. Features include a plugin architectu ...
as to the identities of internet users alleged to have defamed him by their postings. Legal experts suggested compliance with the orders was unlikely, given the US tradition of freedom of speech, and the fact that US courts typically required "actual evidence or sufficient allegations of libel" before granting similar orders.
Legal experts did not believe the order was enforceable in the United States because of its policy related to freedom of speech. Initially, the Foundation agreed to give the information to Bacon's
solicitor
A solicitor is a legal practitioner who traditionally deals with most of the legal matters in some jurisdictions. A person must have legally-defined qualifications, which vary from one jurisdiction to another, to be described as a solicitor and ...
s, but later said it would cooperate only with a court order in the U.S., saying "Please note that we do not comply with foreign subpoenas absent an immediate threat to life or limb."
Automattic
Automattic Inc. is an American global distributed company which was founded in August 2005 and is most notable for WordPress.com (a freemium blogging service), as well as its contributions to WordPress (an open source blogging software). The co ...
, which owns WordPress, said Bacon would need a court order but agreed to remove any defamatory material from its websites.
Feud with Peter Nygård
In early 2019, it was reported that Peter Nygård had filed a complaint with the U.S. Federal Court in Manhattan alleging that Bacon had violated sections of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. Nygård and Bacon had been previously engaged in a protracted legal dispute over two adjacent properties they own in the Bahamas.
Personal life
In 1986 Bacon married Cynthia Pigott, a former ''
Newsweek
''Newsweek'' is an American weekly online news magazine co-owned 50 percent each by Dev Pragad, its president and CEO, and Johnathan Davis (businessman), Johnathan Davis, who has no operational role at ''Newsweek''. Founded as a weekly print m ...
'' magazine staff member. They divorced in 2002, after having four children together.
In 2007, he married Gabrielle Sacconaghi in Manhattan.
In November 2007, Bacon purchased the Trinchera Ranch in
Costilla County
Costilla County (Spanish for "rib") is a county located in the U.S. state of Colorado. As of the 2020 census, the population was 3,499. The county seat is San Luis, the oldest continuously occupied town in Colorado.
History
On July 8, 1694 ...
,
Colorado
Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the ...
from the Forbes family. The property sold for $175 million. In 2010, Bacon purchased the
Orton Plantation
The Orton Plantation is a historic plantation house in the Smithville Township of Brunswick County, North Carolina, United States. Located beside the Cape Fear River between Wilmington and Southport, Orton Plantation is considered to be a nea ...
in North Carolina, which was built in 1735 by an ancestor, Roger Moore, son of James Moore.
In 2002 Bacon obtained
Austria
Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
n citizenship, due to a special provision for figures who have made notable achievements for Austria. The decision was criticised, as no achievement by Bacon on behalf of Austria was documented.
Political and economic views
Bacon contributed £500,000 to Britain's
Conservative Party
The Conservative Party is a name used by many political parties around the world. These political parties are generally right-wing though their exact ideologies can range from center-right to far-right.
Political parties called The Conservative P ...
between 2010 and 2016. Bacon also served as a fundraiser for American politician
Mitt Romney
Willard Mitt Romney (born March 12, 1947) is an American politician, businessman, and lawyer serving as the junior United States senator from Utah since January 2019, succeeding Orrin Hatch. He served as the 70th governor of Massachusetts ...
, who was elected governor of Massachusetts and later ran for president. In 2015, Bacon donated $1 million to a Super PAC supporting the presidential candidacy of
Jeb Bush
John Ellis "Jeb" Bush (born February 11, 1953) is an American politician and businessman who served as the 43rd governor of Florida from 1999 to 2007. Bush, who grew up in Houston, was the second son of former President George H. W. Bush ...
.
Wealth
In 1991, Bacon was 20th on the list of Financial World's Top 100 Wall Street Earners list.
Philanthropy
In 1992, Bacon created The Moore Charitable Foundation (MCF) to provide financial support to nonprofit organizations that work to preserve and protect wildlife habitat and improve water systems. Bacon has donated more than one million dollars to the environmental non-profit organization
Riverkeeper
Riverkeeper is a non-profit environmental organization dedicated to the protection of the Hudson River and its tributaries, as well as the watersheds that provide New York City with its drinking water. It started out as the Hudson River Fisherman ...
.
In June 2012,
United States Secretary of Interior
The United States secretary of the interior is the head of the United States Department of the Interior. The secretary and the Department of the Interior are responsible for the management and conservation of most federal land along with natura ...
Ken Salazar
Kenneth Lee Salazar (born March 2, 1955) is an American lawyer, politician, and diplomat who is the United States ambassador to Mexico. He previously served as the 50th United States Secretary of the Interior in the administration of President B ...
and
United States Fish and Wildlife Service
The United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS or FWS) is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior dedicated to the management of fish, wildlife, and natural habitats. The mission of the agency is "working with othe ...
Director Daniel M. Ashe announced Bacon intends to donate a conservation easement totaling approximately 90,000 acres in the
Sangre de Cristo Mountains
The Sangre de Cristo Mountains ( Spanish for " Blood of Christ") are the southernmost subrange of the Rocky Mountains. They are located in southern Colorado and northern New Mexico in the United States. The mountains run from Poncha Pass in South- ...
bordering the
San Luis Valley
The San Luis Valley is a region in south-central Colorado with a small portion overlapping into New Mexico. The valley is approximately long and wide, extending from the Continental Divide on the northwest rim into New Mexico on the south. It c ...
in
Colorado
Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the ...
. This easement will provide the founding tract for the proposed new Sangre de Cristo Conservation Area.
Bacon owns the Trinchera Blanca Ranch located in the San Luis Valley. The Trinchera section of the ranch is currently protected by an easement administered by Colorado Open Lands. The new conservation easement Bacon intends to donate is to protect Blanca – thus protecting all 172,000 acres of land.
In addition to his work in Colorado, Bacon has helped preserve and protect environmentally sensitive land in New York, North Carolina, and the Bahamas. His key conservation projects include:
* Robins Island, Long Island, New York: After purchasing the "Jewel of the Peconic" in 1993, Bacon secured the permanent protection of the land through a conservation easement and set about restoring a natural habitat that had been deteriorating for 300 years.
* Cow Neck Farm, Long Island, New York: Bacon's Cow Neck Preserve, LLC purchased the farm in 1998 and donated a 540-acre conservation easement to the Peconic Land Trust, thus preventing development and ensuring the protection of the area's habitat.
* Lyford Cay, Bahamas: Bacon is involved with the environmental restoration of Lyford Cay.
Legacy and awards
In 2008, he was inducted into Institutional Investors Alpha's Hedge Fund Manager Hall of Fame.
He is the 2013 recipient of the Audubon Medal, given in recognition of outstanding achievement in the field of conservation and environmental protection. In 2016, Bacon received a Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership's Lifetime Conservation Achievement Award for authorizing conservation easements on more than 210,600 acres in the US.