Leon G Cooperman

Early life and education

Cooperman was born to a Jewish family in the South Bronx, New York City. He is the son of immigrants from Poland. Cooperman was the first in his family to earn a college degree. As an undergraduate at Hunter College, Cooperman joined and was an active member of the Alpha Epsilon Pi. After graduating, he became a quality control engineer at Xerox in 1965. Cooperman later received his MBA from Columbia Business School, graduating in 1967.

Early career and Goldman Sachs

Directly after graduating from Columbia, Cooperman joined Goldman Sachs. He spent his first twenty two years at Goldman in the Investment Research Department as partner-in-charge, co-chairman of the Investment Policy Committee and chairman of the Stock Selection Committee. In 1989, he became chairman and chief executive officer of Goldman Sachs Asset Management and was chief investment officer of the equity product line including managing the GS Capital Growth Fund, an open-end mutual fund, for one and one-half years.

While at Goldman Sachs, for nine consecutive years, Cooperman was voted the number-one portfolio strategist in the Institutional Investor "All-America Research Team" survey.

At the end of 1991 after twenty five years of service, Cooperman retired from his positions as a general partner of Goldman, Sachs & Co. and as chairman and chief executive officer of Goldman Sachs Asset Management.

Founding of Omega

After leaving Goldman Sachs, he organized a private investment partnership, Omega Advisors, Inc.

2016 SEC investigation

On September 21, 2016, Cooperman was charged with insider trading by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. He denied the charges. Cooperman faces criminal charges in a related parallel proceeding and has asserted his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination before a SEC hearing. In May 2017 Cooperman's firm agreed to a $4.9 million settlement with the SEC. As part of the agreement, Omega Advisers admitted no wrongdoing. Following the settlement, Cooperman commented: "The process in my opinion was totally abusive. It's a problem that the government should address,"

Personal life

With his wife Toby, he has two sons, Wayne and Michael, and three grandchildren. Since the late 1970s, Cooperman has been a resident of the Short Hills neighborhood of Millburn, New Jersey. He has an honorary doctorate in finance from Roger Williams University in Rhode Island.

Political and economic views

In November 2011, Cooperman gained attention for an open letter to U.S. President Barack Obama in which among other things charged the president with engaging in class warfare. This letter has been characterized by Joseph Palermo of The Huffington Post as a rant bemoaning the mistreatment of billionaires by the president and his "minions" (Cooperman's word).

Wealth and philanthropy

He and his wife Toby are signators of The Giving Pledge and manage the Leon and Toby Cooperman Family Foundation. In 2012, Cooperman was included in the 50 Most Influential list of Bloomberg Markets magazine. Forbes listed him as one of the 40 Highest-Earning hedge fund managers in 2013, and the next year it listed him among the top 25.

Cooperman has a long history of supporting Columbia Business School. In 2011, he donated $25 million to support the expansion of the school's campus. In 2007, he created the Cooperman Scholarship Challenge, helping to create over 40 need based scholarships. In 2000, he established the Leon Cooperman Scholarship to support financial aid for need based students. In 1995, he endowed the Leon Cooperman Professorship of Finance and Economics.

Cooperman was the first in the country to endow Birthright Israel, a program that sends Jews aged 18–26 on free short-term visits to Israel to promote Jewish identity. Cooperman states: "We are very proud of our religion, our heritage, the many accomplishments of the Jewish people, and the enormous contribution they make to society. But we are very concerned about the pace of assimilation and really the disappearance of the Jewish religion. Through intermarriage and rapid assimilation, we’re disappearing. We’re trying to make our effort to help either slow that down or reverse it.”

He is also a founding Master Player of the Portfolios with Purpose virtual stock trading contest.

In April 2014, the Leon and Toby Cooperman Family Foundation pledged $25 million to the Saint Barnabas Medical Center for the construction of a new 200,000 square-foot Cooperman Family Pavilion.

He is on the board of the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation.