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Clintons: A Hedge Fund in the Family
For Clintons, a Hedge Fund in the Family
By MATTHEW GOLDSTEIN and STEVE EDER
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/23/business/dealbook/for-clintons-a-hedge-fund-in-the-family.html?_r=0
Beyond the glamour, being part of the Clinton family has provided Mr. Mezvinsky with another perk: access to wealthy investors with ties to the Clintons.
When Mr. Mezvinsky and his partners began raising money in 2011 for a new hedge fund firm, Eaglevale Partners, a number of investors in the firm were longtime supporters of the Clintons, according to interviews and financial documents reviewed by The New York Times. Tens of millions of dollars raised by Eaglevale can be attributed to investors with some relationship or link to the Clintons.
The investors include hedge fund managers like Marc Lasry and James Leitner; an overseas money management firm connected to the Rothschild family; and people from Goldman Sachs, including the chief executive, Lloyd C. Blankfein. Some of the investors in Eaglevale have contributed campaign money to the former president and Mrs. Clinton, who is widely expected to run for president again in 2016. Some have also contributed to the family’s foundation.
Identifying who put money into Eaglevale, a roughly $400 million fund that has had underwhelming returns for much of its brief history, is difficult because hedge funds do not publicly disclose their investors. Still, the overlap between at least some of Eaglevale’s investors and backers of the Clintons illustrates how politics and finance can intersect and shows the fine line the Clinton family must navigate as their charitable and business endeavors come under scrutiny in an election cycle.
A person briefed on the matter and close to the firm said the amount of investor money recruited by Mr. Mezvinsky is not large, amounting to less than 10 percent of the firm’s total outside capital. Clinton supporters also say there are more direct ways to cultivate favor with the family, such as giving to the foundation, where Chelsea Clinton is vice chairwoman, than by investing with a hedge fund that her husband co-founded.
There are several examples of Eaglevale investors with relationships with the Clintons. Rock Creek Group, a Washington-based investment advisory firm, placed $13 million from the California Public Employees’ Retirement System and another public pension fund with Eaglevale in late 2011 and early 2012. Rock Creek’s chairwoman, Afsaneh Beschloss, attended state dinners at the Clinton White House in the late 1990s and was a panelist in the annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative in September in New York. (Her husband, Michael, is a well-known presidential historian and occasional writer for The Times.)
For a brief period in 2013, after Eaglevale had been up and running for about a year, Rock Creek sublet temporary office space to Mrs. Clinton after she stepped down as secretary of state.
Mr. Lasry, a co-founder of the big hedge fund Avenue Capital and a longtime friend and financial backer of both the former president and Mrs. Clinton, said he invested $1 million in Eaglevale. In an interview in his Park Avenue office, adorned with many photos of him with the former president, he said that he recommended that his relative by marriage, Craig Effron, another hedge fund manager, also invest in the fund.
“I gave them money because I thought they would make me money,” said Mr. Lasry, whose $13 billion firm was one of the first places Chelsea worked after graduating from Stanford.
A number of other investors reached by The Times declined to be interviewed.
snip
By MATTHEW GOLDSTEIN and STEVE EDER
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/23/business/dealbook/for-clintons-a-hedge-fund-in-the-family.html?_r=0
Beyond the glamour, being part of the Clinton family has provided Mr. Mezvinsky with another perk: access to wealthy investors with ties to the Clintons.
When Mr. Mezvinsky and his partners began raising money in 2011 for a new hedge fund firm, Eaglevale Partners, a number of investors in the firm were longtime supporters of the Clintons, according to interviews and financial documents reviewed by The New York Times. Tens of millions of dollars raised by Eaglevale can be attributed to investors with some relationship or link to the Clintons.
The investors include hedge fund managers like Marc Lasry and James Leitner; an overseas money management firm connected to the Rothschild family; and people from Goldman Sachs, including the chief executive, Lloyd C. Blankfein. Some of the investors in Eaglevale have contributed campaign money to the former president and Mrs. Clinton, who is widely expected to run for president again in 2016. Some have also contributed to the family’s foundation.
Identifying who put money into Eaglevale, a roughly $400 million fund that has had underwhelming returns for much of its brief history, is difficult because hedge funds do not publicly disclose their investors. Still, the overlap between at least some of Eaglevale’s investors and backers of the Clintons illustrates how politics and finance can intersect and shows the fine line the Clinton family must navigate as their charitable and business endeavors come under scrutiny in an election cycle.
A person briefed on the matter and close to the firm said the amount of investor money recruited by Mr. Mezvinsky is not large, amounting to less than 10 percent of the firm’s total outside capital. Clinton supporters also say there are more direct ways to cultivate favor with the family, such as giving to the foundation, where Chelsea Clinton is vice chairwoman, than by investing with a hedge fund that her husband co-founded.
There are several examples of Eaglevale investors with relationships with the Clintons. Rock Creek Group, a Washington-based investment advisory firm, placed $13 million from the California Public Employees’ Retirement System and another public pension fund with Eaglevale in late 2011 and early 2012. Rock Creek’s chairwoman, Afsaneh Beschloss, attended state dinners at the Clinton White House in the late 1990s and was a panelist in the annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative in September in New York. (Her husband, Michael, is a well-known presidential historian and occasional writer for The Times.)
For a brief period in 2013, after Eaglevale had been up and running for about a year, Rock Creek sublet temporary office space to Mrs. Clinton after she stepped down as secretary of state.
Mr. Lasry, a co-founder of the big hedge fund Avenue Capital and a longtime friend and financial backer of both the former president and Mrs. Clinton, said he invested $1 million in Eaglevale. In an interview in his Park Avenue office, adorned with many photos of him with the former president, he said that he recommended that his relative by marriage, Craig Effron, another hedge fund manager, also invest in the fund.
“I gave them money because I thought they would make me money,” said Mr. Lasry, whose $13 billion firm was one of the first places Chelsea worked after graduating from Stanford.
A number of other investors reached by The Times declined to be interviewed.
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