Wes Edens

Wesley Robert Edens (born October 30, 1961) is an American billionaire businessman and private equity investor.

He is the co-founder of Fortress Investment Group and founder of New Fortress Energy.

Edens is co-owner of the Milwaukee Bucks franchise of the NBA based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

While Edens was co-owner, the Bucks won the 2021 NBA championship.

He is also the co-owner of association football holding company V Sports alongside Nassef Sawiris, whose assets include ownership of football club Aston Villa and an agreement to purchase a 46% stake in Portuguese Primeira Liga team Vitória S.C.

In his teenage years, Edens was a competitive skier.

Edens received a B.S. in Finance and Business Administration from Oregon State University in 1984.

He began his career in 1987 at Lehman Brothers, where he was a partner and managing director until 1993.

He then went to BlackRock's private equity division BlackRock Asset Investors, where he remained until 1997 as a partner and managing director.

Wes Edens was one of five principal partners who founded Fortress Investments in 1998.

When the Japanese financial holding company, Nomura Holdings acquired 15% of Fortress for $888 million in December 2006 with proceeds going to the five principals, Edens and his partners became paper billionaires.

Edens's investment style was described in a 2007 The Wall Street Journal article as one based on "contrarian bets, creative financing and a knack for building business from investments."

Fortress became the first publicly traded buyout firm on February 9, 2007, with Edens and his partners taking the company public through its initial public offering.

By the time it went public in 2007 Fortress' assets under management included both private equity and publicly traded alternative investment vehicles — fourteen private equity funds, four hedge funds, and two real estate vehicles.

In 2007, Edens and Fortress paid $3.5 billion to acquire the South Florida rail line founded by the 19th-century industrialist Henry Flagler.

Inspired by Les Standiford's Last Train to Paradise: Henry Flagler and the Spectacular Rise and Fall of the Railroad that Crossed an Ocean, Brightline's first line was an inter-city 67 mile between Miami and West Palm Beach, Florida.

The company recently built and opened a 170 mile to the Orlando International Airport.

The trains are expected to travel up to 125 mph and commute from Orlando's airport to Miami in approximately three hours.

The ridership target is 6.6 million passengers within its first full year of service.

Beginning in 2024, Fortress plans on constructing a second line on the West Coast, called Brightline West, connecting Las Vegas to Rancho Cucamonga, California with a stop in Apple Valley, California via a 260 mile.

This 135-minute commute aims to carry passengers at speeds of up to 200 mph. Trains on this line will be fully electric and run along the Interstate 15 right of way.

Brightline's service is modeled on Eurostar's Paris-to-London commute.

Its coach design includes white-and-blue interiors, roomy seating, and free Wi-Fi.

Edens was the catalyst at Fortress behind the purchase of subprime lender Springleaf Financial Services.

Edens became Co-Chairman of the Board of Directors at Fortress in 2009, and helped the company, which saw its stock price fall to below one dollar after the subprime mortgage crisis, resurge by offering subprime lending.

Edens and his wife Lynn have four children, and his daughter represented the Milwaukee Bucks in the 2014 NBA Draft lottery.

His personal interests include horse jumping, alpine skiing and mountain climbing.

Edens built and owns Caldera House, an eight-room boutique hotel and private ski club in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

In 2014, Edens founded New Fortress Energy, a global natural gas supply and infrastructure company.

New Fortress Energy has stated that their main goals include becoming one of the world's leading producers of carbon-free energy (focusing specifically on low-cost green hydrogen) and existing as a net zero emissions company within ten years.

He served as Chairman of Fortress Transportation and Infrastructure Investors LLC from 2015 to May 2016.

By 2015 the value of Springleaf Holdings Inc. had ballooned to "$3.5 billion — putting the firm's gain at more than 27 times Fortress's original investment of $124 million in 2010."

In 2019, New Fortress constructed a nearly $1 billion floating LNG terminal in Jamaica's Old Harbour Bay.

The prime minister of Jamaica stated that the terminal's presence will result in overall cheaper energy costs for the country.

New Fortress Energy has been involved in multiple philanthropic projects in Jamaica after its work completion with the LNG terminal.

In October 2020, New Fortress Energy invested in H2Pro, a startup that develops low-cost green hydrogen technology.

Through New Fortress' Zero, its renewable hydrogen division, the two companies will partner in order develop and commercialize green hydrogen technology.

The Zero division also partnered that same month with a gas-fired power plant in Ohio in order to blend hydrogen to produce electricity.

In January 2021, the company announced that it would acquire natural gas company Hygo Energy Transition Ltd, as well Golar LNG Partners LP., for $5 billion in order to expand its presence in Brazil.

New Fortress plans to launch a pilot program in 2021 to test the usage of hydrogen as an energy source of power generation.