Steve Cohen not only bought himself a major sports franchise in New York last year, but 2021 was also good to him financially. The billionaire investor earned $1.6 billion in 2020 in spite of the Coronavirus crisis, the NY Post reports. But his 2021 has already been darkened by the resurgence of ghosts from his past.
The 64 year old Steve Cohen is reportedly worth more than $14 Billion. According to Forbes, he oversees Point72 Asset Management, a $16 billion hedge fund firm that started managing outside capital in 2018.
Point72 Asset Management reportedly had a return of about 17 percent in 2020. Cohen paid $2.4 billion for the NY Mets last year. If he really did pocket $1.6 billion in 2020 alone then Cohen will have more than enough cash on hand, even after taxes, to fund the team in the years ahead. And the thought of this has New York baseball fans salivating.
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But Cohen was involved in financial scandals in the past. His SAC Capital was considered one of the most successful hedge funds ever until charges of financial misconduct emerged. Steve Cohen was forced to shut down SAC Capital after the firm pleaded guilty to insider trading charges which cost Cohen $1.8 billion in penalties. The insider trading scandal was thought by some to have been an impediment to his acquisition of the NY Mets. But in the end it did not matter.
Now The New York Times has reported on an old sexual discrimination suit which was once brought against Steve Cohen’s Point72 Asset Management hedge fund company, which is based in Stamford, Conn.
According to an only recently unsealed complaint, a trading group leader with Point72 named Sara Vavra accused Mr. Cohen of personally harassing her. She said that Steve Cohen came into her office in July 2019 and began “an abusive, expletive-ridden tirade” criticizing her work and calling Vavra stupid. Vavra also said that Cohen used a derogatory expletive used to describe a woman’s genitals.
Sara Vavra was fired in October 2019 which led her to file a complaint with Connecticut’s Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities.
In response, a spokeswoman for Point72 said, “Ms. Vavra made numerous misrepresentations during her employment about things big and small and the same is true about her complaint, including the particularly offensive accusation that Steve used vulgar language when addressing her. Steve emphatically denies making this comment to Ms. Vavra at any time.”
Point72 is also dealing with a discrimination suit brought by Lauren Bonner who called the firm a “boys club.”
The 2020 baseball season was almost canceled due to the Coronavirus and in the end only 60 games out of 162 were played. In six weeks MLB players will report to their respective teams’ spring training facilities. If things work out, the 2021 season will begin at the end of March, Covid-19 notwithstanding.
If the New York Mets have a good season, if Steve Cohen spends some of his billions on new players and better professionals to run the team, then Mets fans won’t care about any civil suits or sex scandals.
