STEVE COHEN’S RIGHT-HAND MAN MAKES SURPRISE EXIT FROM FAMILY OFFICE
MICHAEL FINNIGAN, 19 August 2014
Thomas Conheeney, the long-serving president of Steven A Cohen’s hedge fund SAC Capital, which pleaded guilty to insider trading last year, has stepped down from the organisation, less than a year after it converted to a family office. Conheeney, 50, will be replaced by Douglas Haynes, 48, a former director at consultancy firm McKinsey & Co, but will remain on in an advisory role until the end of the year.
Cohen said in a statement that he had worked with Haynes for several years on the board of New York poverty action charity the Robin Hood Foundation and was impressed by his work there so asked him to head his family office.
In praise of his outgoing president, Cohen said Conheeney grew SAC Capital, renamed Point72 when it became a family office, into “one of the world’s most successful hedge funds”. “Among his many accomplishments, he led us through the 2008 financial crisis, the 2010 aftershocks and the crisis following the revelation of insider trading by former employees at the firm,” Cohen said.
While Cohen described the departure as amicable, Conheeney’s swift exit comes as a surprise considering the former president was one of SAC’s most vocal defenders during its insider trading investigation, which concluded in April this year with a settlement of $1.2 billion (€900 million)
