Catch Them If You Can

Martin Shkreli, in sunglasses, departs US federal court in Brooklyn after arraignment on Thursday: photo by Lucas Jackson/Reuters, 17 December 2015

The pick-up truck Ethan Couch was driving is pictured here after the accident that left four people dead.: photo by Tarrant County Sheriff's Office, 15 June 2013 via ABC News, 15 October 2015 

'Affluenza' Teen Ethan Couch and Mom Will Not Be Sent to US Today: photo by Jalisco State Prosecutor's Office via ABC News. 30 December 2015

The authorities have intensified their search for Ethan Couch, releasing new details and offering a $5,000 reward: photo by U.S. Marshals Service via Agence France-Presse / The New York Times, 22 December 2015


 
 Tonya Couch: photo by Tarrant County Sheriff's Office via The New York Times, 29 December 2015

 

Ethan Couch appeared in juvenile court in Fort Worth, Texas, last year: photo by LM Otero/Associated Press via the New York Times, 16 December 2015

 

Daniel S. Loeb, shown with his wife, Margaret, runs the $17 billion Third Point hedge fund. Mr. Loeb, who has owned a home in East Hampton, has contributed to Jeb Bush’s super PAC and given $1 million to the American Unity Super PAC, which supports gay rights. Mr. Loeb has invested in a Bermuda-based reinsurer -- an insurer to insurance companies -- that turns around and invests the money in his hedge fund. That maneuver transforms his profits from short-term bets in the market, which the government taxes at roughly 40 percent, into long-term profits, known as capital gains, which are taxed at roughly half that rate. It has had the added advantage of letting Mr. Loeb defer taxes on this income indefinitely, allowing his wealth to compound and grow more quickly: photo on left by Patrick McMullan Company/photo on right by Doug Kuntz via The New York Times, 30 December 2015

 

 Louis Moore Bacon, shown with his wife, Gabrielle, is the founder of a highly successful hedge fund and a leading contributor to Jeb Bush’s super PAC. Among his homes is one on Robins Island, off Long Island. “Our investment in Max Re was not a tax-driven scheme, but rather a sound investment response to investor interest in a more dynamically managed portfolio akin to Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway,” said Mr. Bacon, who leads Moore Capital Management.: photo on left byAmanda Gordon/Bloomberg News/photo on right by Doug Kuntz via The New York Times, 30 December 2015

 

An exterior view of the headquarters of SAC Capital Advisors, L.P. in Stamford, Connecticut: photo by Michelle McLoughlin/Reuters, 25 July 2013

'Mao' by Andy Warhol: image by Sotheby's via Bloomberg Business, 11 November 2015

Steve Cohen Is Trading Art Like Stocks: Katya Kazikina, Bloomberg Business, 3 November 2015

Steven A. Cohen built a reputation as a fast trader with an uncanny ability to predict where stock prices are headed. He’s applying his investing style to an art collection that now accounts for about $1 billion of his $11 billion fortune.

Cohen is selling two paintings estimated at more than $65 million at New York auctions this month, according to people familiar with the matter, as the billionaire money manager is taking advantage of surging prices. The works are part of the bellwether semiannual auctions at Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Phillips that will target more than $2.1 billion in sales over 10 days starting Wednesday. 

The 59-year-old Cohen regularly sells pieces from his collection, both privately and at auction, and buys new ones, according to dealers and advisers. One of the works he’s consigned, according to one of the people, is a punctured, egg-shaped Lucio Fontana canvas estimated at more than $25 million at Christie’s. The piece may smash an auction record for the Italian artist that was set just last month in London.

Warhol’s Mao

Cohen also is selling a Mao portrait by Andy Warhol at more than $40 million at Sotheby’s, or 40 times its last auction price 19 years ago, said two people who asked not to be named because the information is private. Both of Cohen’s works are marked as guaranteed in the auction catalogs, meaning he will get an undisclosed price regardless of what happens in the salesrooms.

“He is a trader by mentality,” said John Good, a private art dealer in New York who knows Cohen and his collection, having spent 13 years as director at Gagosian Gallery and three years at Christie’s private sales division. “But he is also a great collector. As dealers, we love people like Stevie Cohen.”

The stakes are high for the auction houses: the sales are the art trade’s biggest test since the global stock market rout in August and September unnerved investors. To win consignments, the companies guaranteed about $1 billion of art to sellers, backing most of the works with their own money, a risky proposition should there be no takers.

Natural Evolution

Fontana’s 1964 “Concetto spaziale, La fine di Dio,” will be offered at Christie’s postwar and contemporary evening sale on Nov. 10. Christie’s is financing the guarantee, according to the catalog. Warhol’s 1972 portrait of former Chinese leader Mao Zedong is for sale at Sotheby’s contemporary art evening auction on Nov. 11. An outside backer agreed to place an irrevocable bid for the work, according to Sotheby’s. Both auction houses put Cohen’s artworks on the covers of their weighty catalogs.

Jonathan Gasthalter, a spokesman for Cohen at Sard Verbinnen & Co., declined to comment on the sales. Sotheby’s and Christie’s declined to comment on the auction sellers.

“He used to collect modernism. Now he’s into classic postwar and contemporary,” Good said of Cohen. “That’s a natural evolution. On the high-ticket things, if he likes them, he keeps them. If he doesn’t, he sells them.”

New Approach

Cohen’s approach, setting records as a buyer and seller with a changing taste, is fairly new in the collecting world. Traditionally, collectors spent decades building their holdings with a mix of superior and mediocre works, and they rarely sold. 

“They loved it. They lived with it,” said Wendy Cromwell, a New York-based art adviser. “That was the old-school way.”

An example of such a collection is on view at Sotheby’s, which is selling a 500-lot trove amassed by its former chairman A. Alfred Taubman, Cromwell said. “Masterworks,” the first sale from the collection, is on Wednesday.

New Record

Cohen’s style of collecting is different. In May, Cohen’s 1961 Jean Dubuffet painting “Paris Polka” fetched $24.8 million at Christie’s, more than three times the artist’s previous auction record of $7.4 million set six months earlier. A year ago, Cohen’s Franz Kline canvas, “King Oliver" (1958), fetched $26.5 million, also at Christie’s in New York, the second-highest price for the Abstract Expressionist painter.

The owner of Point 72 Asset Management, a family office that manages about $11 billion, in 2013 consigned a group of seven paintings to Sotheby’s. They tallied at least $77 million, led by Gerhard Richter’s 1986 abstract painting “A.B. Courbet" that fetched $26.5 million.

Cohen’s recent acquisitions include Alberto Giacometti’s 1950 painted-bronze sculpture “Chariot” that fetched $101 million at Sotheby’s in November 2014.

Fontana Record

Almost 7-feet-tall, “Mao” is one of 11 made in this height, according to Sotheby’s catalog. This painting fetched $1 million at Sotheby’s in 1996, when it last appeared at auction.

Fontana’s market has been on fire this year, surpassing the 2008 high when his works tallied $95.9 million at auction, according to research company Artprice.com. Last month in London, Sotheby’s and Christie’s sold 21 Fontana pieces for a total of 36.6 million pounds ($56.6 million). The artist’s auction record was established last month at Sotheby’s for a black egg canvas at $24.7 million.

It’s unclear how much Cohen paid for the Warhol and Fontana. Cohen bought “Mao” in a private transaction from Francois Pinault, the billionaire owner of Christie’s, in 2007. At Christie’s in 2006 another “Mao” painting from the same group fetched $17.4 million.

Cohen exemplifies a new breed of collectors who have a passion for art but also aren’t reluctant to switch up their holdings, Good said.

“A lot of people treat their art collections as one asset class and they trade within that asset class,” Good said. “If it’s not working for you anymore, why not turn it into cash and buy more art?”

Poker face: image via Dealbreaker, 28 December 2015

 

Steve CohenIs Writing Eight-Figure Checks To Make People Go Away: Jon Shazar, Dealbreaker, 28 December 2015

Even to people who are already splitting 602 million of his dollars. Be advised, Mary Jo White.

Billionaire Steven A. Cohen’s former hedge fund SAC Capital Advisors LP has agreed to pay $10 million to resolve a lawsuit by shareholders of drugmaker Wyeth, who claimed they lost money because the fund engaged in insider trading in Wyeth’s stock…. 

“We are pleased to have resolved the Wyeth matter and are prepared to vigorously contest the remaining class action,” Point72 spokesman Mark Herr said.

Steve Cohen: photo by Reuters via Page Six, 18 July 2015

Billionaire furious he can't sell "jinxed" Manhattan apartment: Emily Smith, Page Six, 18 July 2015

Hedge fund billionaire Steven A. Cohen is back trying to offload the “jinxed” Manhattan apartment that just won’t sell.

The SAC Capital founder initially put his One Beacon Court duplex on East 58th Street on the market for a whopping $115 million in April 2013.

But the pricey penthouse atop the Bloomberg Tower didn’t attract any buyers, so he slashed $17 million off the pad in December 2013, offering the luxe four-bedroom for a bank-busting $98 million.

But still there were no takers for the 9,000-square-foot minimalist apartment, which boasts 24-foot-high walls of windows and offers sweeping views of Central Park and Downtown. So, after slashing it to $82 million, Cohen took it off the market and blamed his brokers.

One source told us at the time, “Cohen hasn’t had a buyer, and he blames his broker. Furious is not the word.” But another source sniffed, “The lack of a buyer might be because some feel the place might have some bad karma or be jinxed because of his SAC troubles.”

In November 2013, his firm SAC Capital pleaded guilty to securities fraud and paid a rec­ord $1.8 billion fine to settle insider-trading charges. Cohen, who was not charged with any crime and denied any wrongdoing, now runs Point72 Asset Management, which operates as a family office hedge fund.

Cohen has just put his princely penthouse back on the market -- reduced to $79 million. But a real-estate insider tells us, “It was way overpriced . . . There’s still a feeling from some big-money guys that the place is still jinxed.”

Despite any real-estate woes, Cohen continues to live large. Page Six exclusively revealed last month that he purchased the world's most expensive sculpture, Giacometti's "Pointing Man," for 141.3 million. He owns a sprawling Connecticut estate, bought an East Hampton mansion for $62.5 million in 2013, and also the same year splashed out on an apartment at the Abingdon in the West Village for $23.4 million. In January, Cohen bought a nine-bedroom Beverly Hills mansion that was listed for $35 million.

Giacometti's "Pointing Man", purchased by hedge fund billionaire Steve Cohen for record $141.3 million at Christie's: image via Page Six, 8 June 2015

 

Man who bought the world's most expensive sculpture revealed: Emily Smith, Page Six, 8 June 2015

Hedge fund billionaire Steven Cohen is the secret buyer of the world’s most expensive sculpture, Alberto Giacometti’s “Man Pointing,” for $141.3 million at Christie’s, Page Six can exclusively reveal.
 
While much of the attention was on the sale of Picasso’s “Les Femmes d’Alger” for $179 million, setting a world record for the most expensive artwork ever sold at auction, Cohen quietly bought Giacometti’s 1947 masterpiece “Man Pointing,” or “L’Homme au doigt,” a life-size bronze sculpture of a thin man, at the same May 11 Christie’s auction.
Giacometti, who died in 1966, made six casts of the work; four are in museums, and the others are in private hands and a foundation collection.
 
While Cohen, 58, elected to remain an anonymous buyer, multiple sources have since confirmed to Page Six that the Point72 Asset Management founder made the record-breaking Giacometti purchase.
 
It is not the only piece Cohen owns by the artist. In November 2014, the hedge funder was the lone bidder for Giacometti’s 1950 sculpture “The Chariot,” spending $101 million at a Sotheby’s auction.
 
“It’s one of the great 20th-century sculptures,’’ said Manhattan art dealer William Acquavella at the time, adding of Cohen, “Steve is a very serious, very astute collector. He also has the right instincts, ones that can’t be learned from reading art-history books.”

Cohen has homes in Manhattan, East Hampton and Greenwich, Conn., where he has been building a private museum for his art collection, which includes Picasso’s “Le Rêve,” Edvard Munch’s “Madonna” and Damien Hirst’s iconic shark in formaldehyde piece, “The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living.”

The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living (Tiger shark in formadehyde solution): DamienHirst, 1992 (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)

 

Cohen, worth an estimated $11.4 billion, closed his legendary hedge fund SAC Capital in 2014 following an insider-trading probe and created a new group of funds called Point72 Asset Management to manage his personal assets.
 
A spokesman for Cohen declined to comment.

Wall Street: photo by Reuters via New York Post, 25 December 2015

 Demonstrators protested in October outside of the New York offices of Turing Pharmaceuticals, whose chief, Martin Shkreli, was arrested on Thursday: photo by Craig Ruttle/Associated Press via the New York Times, 18 December 2015

Martin Shkreli, in sunglasses, departs US federal court in Brooklyn after arraignment on Thursday: photo by Lucas Jackson/Reuters, 17 December 2015

Martin Shkreli was arrested at his Manhattan home Thursday morning: photo by Richard Perry/The New York Times, 18 December 2015

The handcrafted silver and nickel box that the Wu-Tang Clan's 'Once Upon a Time in Shaolin' album will come in: photo by Scluzay/Warren Wesley Patterson via New York Daily News, 28 March 2014

The handcrafted silver and nickel box that the Wu-Tang Clan's 'Once Upon a Time in Shaolin' album will come in: photo by Scluzay/Warren Wesley Patterson via New York Daily News, 28 March 2014

 

"Most hated man in America" who raised HIV drug price to $750 arrested by FBI for securities fraud.#karma: image via Mike Sington @Mike Sington, 17 December 2015  Los Angeles, CA

Martin Shkreli is so lonely he spent 2 million on the new #WuTang album to hopefully buy friends: image via Mike Glazer @GlazerBooHooHoo 9 December 2015

When momma makes yo favorite cookies and the rest of ya fam eat them all before u get home from work: image via Wu-Tang Financial @Wu_Tang_Finance, 17 December 2015

Meet music's king of controversy Martin Shkreli, the man who bought the $2m Wu Tang album: image via NME, 11 December 2015

AIDS activists pour cat litter on an image of Shkreli in a makeshift cat litter pan during a protest highlighting pharmaceutical drug pricing, in front of the building that houses Turing's offices, in New York.: photo by Craig Ruttle/APJ via Bloomberg, 17 December 2015

Chemical "preparation" of a banknote: photographer unknown,from Francesca Picchi: Methods for an irreversible alteration of money: An interview with Cesare Pietroiusti, in Domus, 18 February 2009

 Mictlantecuhtli, god of the dead and king of Mictlan (Chicunauhmictlan), lowest and northernmost section of the underworld: Aztec, sculptor unknown, recovered during excavation of the House of Eagles in the Templo Mayor: photo by Thelmadatter, 23 March 2008 (Museum of the Templo Mayor, Mexico City

Looking back from the present, it cannot be denied that western capitalism in the long run created a new art of living, new ways of thinking: it developed side by side with them. Can one call this a new civilization? That would I think be putting it too strongly: a civilization is built up over a longer time scale.

But if change there was, when did it come? ... Werner Sombart locates it in fifteenth-century Florence.

There is no doubt in my mind: on this point Sombart is right... Thirteenth-century -- and a fortiori fourteenth-century Florence was a capitalist city, whatever meaning one attaches to the word. The precocious and abnormal picture it presented struck Sombart, quite understandably... Leon Battista Alberti (1404-1472), architect, sculptor, humanist, was the scion of a long-powerful family with an eventful history: members of the Alberti family had economically colonized England in the fourteenth century; indeed so ubiquitous were they that the English documents often refer to them as the Albertynes -- as if like the Lucchese or indeed the Florentines, they were a nation in themselves. Leon Battista spent many years in exile and with the intention of escaping the troubles of the world entered holy orders. He wrote the first of three Libri della Famiglia in Rome, in about 1433-1434; the fourth was completed in Florence in 1441. Sombart finds in these books a new climate: praise of money, recognition of the value of time, the need to live thriftily -- all good bourgeois principles in the first flush of their youth. And the fact that this cleric came from a long line of merchants respected for their good faith lent weight to his writings. Money is 'the root of all things'; 'with money, one can have a house or a villa, and all the trades and craftsmen will toil like servants for the man who has money. He who has none goes without everything, and money is required for every purpose.' This was a new attitude towards wealth: previously it had been regarded as a kind of obstacle to salvation. The same was true of time: in the past, time had been considered as belonging to God alone; to sell it (in the shape of interest) was to sell non suum, what did not belong to one. But now time was once more becoming a dimension of human life, one of man's possessions which he would do well not to waste. And there was a new approach to luxury: 'Always remember, my sons', writes Alberti, 'that your expenditure should never exceed your income ' -- a new rule which condemned the conspicuous luxury of the nobles. As Sombart says, 'this was introducing a spirit of thrift not into the wretched domestic budgets of humble people who could hardly get enough to eat but into the mansions of the rich'. In other words, the spirit of capitalism.

Fernand Braudel: from The Wheels of Commerce (Les jeux de l'echange), 1979, Volume 2 of Civilization and Capitalism, 15th-18th century (Civilisation materielle, économie et capitalisme); translated from the French by Sîan Reynolds, 1982

 

An image from Martin Shkreli’s live stream on YouTube: photo via The New York Times, 17 December 2015

 Mictlantecuhtli, god of the dead: Aztec, sculptor unknown; photo by Jamie Dwyer, 19 August 2008 (Museum of the Templo Mayor, Mexico City)