Michael Steinhardt

Michael H. Steinhardt (born December 7, 1940) is an American billionaire hedge fund manager, philanthropist, and former antiquities collector.

[6] After decades of successfully managing the fund, Steinhardt and his firm were investigated for allegedly trying to manipulate the short-term Treasury Note market in the early 1990s.

He personally paid 75% of a total fine of $70 million as part of settlement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and Department of Justice.

However, as the WisdomTree funds tended to outperform their "bogies," asset growth resumed its earlier pace and its stock price appreciated accordingly.

[3] The Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development at New York University bears his name in recognition of two $10 million donations.

Steinhardt is the past chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council and a board member of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, to which he donated $250,000 in 2002.

The "Mega Group" was formed by Leslie Wexner, chairman of Limited Inc. and Charles and Edgar Bronfman Sr., chairmen of Seagram.

Steinhardt wrote a letter to President Bill Clinton advocating the pardon of Marc Rich, calling him "my friend...who has been punished enough."

[22] On September 12, 2018, The Jewish Week reported that Hillel International was investigating Steinhardt for "inappropriate sexual remarks" to two female employees of one of the organizations he supports.

The second woman making allegations received a written apology from Steinhardt, dated August 23, 2011, acknowledging his inappropriate comments made toward her and two male colleagues at a meeting the year before.

The report noted that Hillel had "quietly" removed his name from the board of governors listed on their website while the organization was investigating the claims.

[32][33] [34] In a press release, District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. said, "For decades, Michael Steinhardt displayed a rapacious appetite for plundered artifacts without concern for the legality of his actions, the legitimacy of the pieces he bought and sold, or the grievous cultural damage he wrought across the globe.

"[35] The Grand Jury Investigation Statement of Facts stated that Steinhart acquired stolen antiquiries from Giacomo Medici, Giovanni Franco Becchina, Edoardo Almagià, Robin Symes, Robert Hecht, Edward and Samuel Merrin, Robert Haber, Eugene Alexander, Fritz and Harry Bürki, Gil Chaya, Rafi Brown, Michael Ward and others.

A bench trial in 2021 determined that Turkey had waited too long to attempt to repatriate the idol, and that it would remain in the United States.

[44] His daughter, Sara Berman, a former journalist and parenting columnist for The New York Sun, is the president of the Hebrew Language Academy Charter School in Brooklyn.

[45] In Sebastian Mallaby's 2010 book entitled More Money Than God: Hedge Funds and the Making of a New Elite, he dedicated a chapter to Steinhardt.

He described Steinhardt as a "lover of botany and a collector of exotic fauna," living in his retirement "on his country estate an hour's drive north of New York City."

"Red" Steinhardt was convicted in 1958 on two counts of buying and selling stolen jewelry, and was sentenced to serve two 5-to-10 year terms, to run consecutively, in the New York State prison system.

In his book, Steinhardt describes how his father bankrolled his early forays into the stock market by giving him envelopes stuffed with $10,000 in cash and sometimes much more than that.

[47] In 2008, he was inducted into Institutional Investors Alpha's Hedge Fund Manager Hall of Fame along with Julian Roberston, Kenneth Griffin, Steven A. Cohen, and others.