Offspring funds keep Pequot’s legacy alive
A few years ago, Pequot Capital Management Inc. Chairman Art Samberg told a financial magazine his goal was to run a hedge fund that would survive its founder.
If he did not quite achieve that vision, at the very least his company’s legacy goes forward through two offspring funds – even as that legacy is still being written.
In a bombshell, Samberg informed investors late last month that he would shut down Westport-based Pequot, refunding current investments while spinning out some smaller funds.
Samberg is a giant in the hedge fund industry, having founded Pequot in October 1986 with an international long/short equity fund. Focused on finding stocks whose price did not reflect relatively strong underlying fundamentals, within 15 years the company would become the largest hedge fund operator in the world with $15 billion in assets under management.
Samberg graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1962 and last year was named a “life member” trustee at the school, the lone head of a Connecticut company to number among 21 people actively holding the title. He is also chairman of the MIT Investment Co.
In 1967 he earned an MBA from Columbia University, where he has served as co-chairman of the board of trustees. In 2006, Samberg gave $25 million to Columbia to create a “challenge grant” fund, in which the school could raise funds to endow faculty seats by promising to match donations with cash from Samberg’s gift.
The Securities and Exchange Commission had been investigating whether a Pequot employee took advantage of insider information in trading shares of Microsoft Corp., where he had previously worked. After informing Pequot in 2006 that it was taking no action, the SEC reopened the probe in January without specifying a reason.
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