Michael Steinhardt

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

Steinhardt earned a bachelor's degree at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, graduating in 1960.

He started his career working for the mutual fund Calvin Bullock and the brokerage firm Loeb, Rhoades & Co. (the precursor to Shearson Loeb Rhoades).

Steinhardt's father was his first investment client, giving his son envelopes stuffed with cash to put in the stock market giving him seed money to begin his investment career.

Working as an analyst at Loeb, Rhoades & Co., Steinhardt followed the conglomerate industry, which included companies such as Automatic Sprinkler (now defunct), City Investing (also defunct), and the best-known conglomerate of its day, Gulf+Western (now part of Viacom and Viacom's spinoff CBS).

In 1967, he founded a hedge fund, Steinhardt Partners which he ran until he closed it in 1995.

In 1967, using earnings from his investments, Steinhardt founded the hedge fund Steinhardt, Fine, and Berkowitz (later Steinhardt Partners) with co-investors William Salomon, former managing partner of Salomon Brothers and Jack Nash, founder of Odyssey Partners.

Between 1967 and 1995, Steinhardt Partners averaged an annualized return for its clients of 24.5%, after a 1% management fee and a "performance fee" of 15% (early in his career, later 20%) of all annual gains, realized and unrealized, nearly triple the annualized performance of the S&P 500 Index over the same timeframe.

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.

His firm made $600 million on the Treasury positions.

In his book, No Bull, Steinhardt said he did nothing wrong, but merely settled the case in order to "move on."

In the 1990s, Steinhardt bought and donated Steeple Jason Island and Grand Jason Island in the Falkland Islands to the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), along with US$425,000 for a research station to be named after himself and his wife.

Steinhardt invested in baseball teams, owning part of the Miami Marlins and the Los Angeles Dodgers.

His fund lost 1/3 of its value in the 1994 bond market crisis.

In 1995, after finishing up 25%, decided to close his fund, stating, "I thought there must be something more virtuous, more ennobling to do with one's life than make rich people richer," before returning to work in 2004 to head WisdomTree Investments, a fund with nearly US$64 billion in assets under management.

The hedge fund distributed all monies to its limited partners at the end of 1995.

In 1999, he and Charles Bronfman co-founded Taglit-Birthright Israel, which sends young Jews aged 18–26 on a 10-day trip to Israel without charge.

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.

Steinhardt is chairman of the board at The Steinhardt Foundation for Jewish Life and Taglit-Birthright Israel.

He also makes public appearances, speaking with young Jewish children through organizations such as Ezra USA and RAJE.

He has been an active philanthropist, donating over $125 million to Jewish causes.

After a hiatus from work, he returned to head WisdomTree Investments in 2004.

In 2004, Steinhardt came out of retirement to work for Index Development Partners, Inc., now known as WisdomTree Investments.

He is chairman of WisdomTree, which offers dividend and earnings-based index funds rather than traditional index funds based on market capitalization.

During the fall of 2007 and 2008, WisdomTree's growth stagnated, as the stock market, especially the financial sector, in which WisdomTree's dividend-based funds are overweighted, tanked, as did WisdomTree's stock.

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

In 2009, Steinhardt gave the American Hebrew Academy $5 million.

The American Hebrew Academy released an advertisement featuring his endorsement.

Steinhardt has founded a network of Hebrew-language charter schools, which are secular and open to both Jews and non-Jews.

He has said "these schools teach Hebrew in a way that is demonstrably superior to Jewish day schools".

Steinhardt is part of the "Mega Group" – a loosely organized club of 20 of the most wealthy and influential Jewish businessmen.

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

Steinhardt is a strong supporter of the State of Israel, which he regards as the "Jewish miracle of the 20th century".

In January 2014 he was on the cover of Forbes Magazine, referred to as "Wall Street's greatest trader."

Forbes Magazine reported his net worth at $1.1 billion as of October 2018.

As of July 2018, WisdomTree had $41.2 billion under management.

Forbes Magazine reported Steinhardt's net worth at US$1.1 billion as of October 2018.

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

After 2018 sexual harassment allegations against Steinhardt, the student government at the school called for removal of the philanthropist’s name; a call which was renewed after his 2021 deal with the Manhattan District Attorney about Steinhardt's 180 stolen antiquities.