Product Code Database
Bruce Stanley Kovner (born February 25 1945) is an American billionaire Hedge fund and philanthropist. He is chairman of CAM Capital, which he established in January 2012 to manage his investment, trading and business activities. From 1983 through 2011, Kovner was founder and chairman of Caxton Associates, a diversified trading company. As of April 2024, his net worth was estimated at US$7.7 billion.
Kovner is chairman of the Juilliard School and vice chairman of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. He is on the boards of the Metropolitan Opera, "Board of Directors," MetOpera.org, retrieved June 16, 2020. and American Enterprise Institute. "Board of Trustees," aei.org, retrieved June 18, 2020.
Kovner went to Harvard College starting in 1962, a time marred by the hanging suicide of his mother back in his family's Van Nuys home in 1965. Nonetheless, he was considered a good student and was well liked by his classmates. Kovner stayed at Harvard, studying political economy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, notably under prominent conservative scholar Edward C. Banfield.
Kovner did not finish his Ph.D., but continued his studies at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government until 1970. Over the next few years, he engaged in a number of eclectic efforts; he worked on political campaigns, studied the harpsichord, was a writer, and a cab driver. It was during the latter occupation, not long after his marriage to now ex-wife Sarah Peter, that he discovered commodities trading.
In his eventual role as a trader under Michael Marcus at Commodities Corporation (now part of Goldman Sachs), he purportedly made millions and gained widespread respect as an objective and sober trader. This ultimately led to the establishment of Caxton Associates, in 1983, which at its peak managed over $14B in capital and has been closed to new investors since 1992. Kovner was a director of Synta Pharmaceuticals from 2002 to 2016. "Bruce Kovner", profile at Synta Pharmaceuticals
In September 2011, Kovner announced his retirement from his position as CEO at Caxton, succeeded by Andrew Law.
Kovner established CAM Capital in January 2012 to manage his investment, trading, and business activities.
A long-time supporter of The Juilliard School, Kovner has been chairman of the School's board since 2001. In 2013 Bruce and his wife, Suzie Kovner, endowed the Kovner Fellowship Program at Juilliard with a gift of $60 million - the largest one-time gift to the school. In 2012 Kovner donated $20 million to Juilliard to endow the school's graduate program in historical performance. Kovner also donated a collection of music manuscripts to Juilliard in 2006. Kovner is vice chairman of Lincoln Center for the performing arts as well as a major funder of the redevelopment of Lincoln Center. He is also managing director of the Metropolitan Opera's board of directors. Kovner founded and was chairman of the School Choice Scholarships Foundation, which awarded scholarships to financially disadvantaged youth in New York City. He has actively supported other charter schools, such as the Success Academy Charter Schools, where his wife Suzie serves on the board.
Kovner has contributed extensively to Conservatism causes. In January 2012 he donated around $500,000 to Restore our Future, a Super PAC supporting the presidential campaign of Mitt Romney. He is the former chairman of the board of trustees of the American Enterprise Institute. His close acquaintances have included former Vice President Dick Cheney, neoconservative figures Richard Perle and James Q. Wilson. Previously, he was a backer of the conservative Manhattan Institute and had invested in The New York Sun daily newspaper. A paper by Robert Brulle noted that his foundation funded conservative organizations that may have been involved in conservative climate change studies from 2003 to 2010. The paper was criticized in The Guardian since the majority of organizations in the study have multiple focuses, and Brulle could not say what portion of money (if any) was devoted to climate issues.
Other philanthropic causes he has supported include the Institute for Justice, a public interest law firm that focuses on school choice; the Innocence Project and Centurion Ministries, which help serve wrongly-convicted inmates, and Lambda Legal, which advocates for equality and civil rights for the LGBTQ community.
His Fifth Avenue mansion in New York City, the Willard D. Straight House, features a lead-lined room to protect against a chemical, biological, or dirty bomb attack.
Kovner is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and received an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from The Juilliard School. In 2016 he awarded both the William E. Simon Prize for Philanthropic Leadership by the Philanthropy Roundtable and the Alexander Hamilton Award by the Manhattan Institute.
|
|
