29 Feb 2020
A battle of the billionaires may be starting at Twitter.
Hedge funder Paul Singer has taken in a stake in the social media company—and now wants to replace Jack Dorsey as Twitter CEO and grab four board seats.
web.archive.org/web/2020031402…
A battle of the billionaires may be starting at Twitter.
Hedge funder Paul Singer has taken in a stake in the social media company—and now wants to replace Jack Dorsey as Twitter CEO and grab four board seats.
web.archive.org/web/2020031402…
Singer’s been a busy guy lately. Over the past year, he’s built up a $25 billion stake in SoftBank after its WeWork investment decimated its shares and one in AT&T.
Singer founded Elliott Management in 1977
His adversaries have been entire countries, most famously a years-long battle to get Argentina to pay up on its bonds. Singer & the other debtholders largely won that fight. In 2016, Argentina agreed to pay $4.75B, 75% of the face value
His adversaries have been entire countries, most famously a years-long battle to get Argentina to pay up on its bonds. Singer & the other debtholders largely won that fight. In 2016, Argentina agreed to pay $4.75B, 75% of the face value
[Note Trump was banned from Twitter 8 Jan 2021]
11 Oct 2007
When the New York Daily News obtained a leaked 140-page strategy memo from the Giuliani campaign in January "one name," according to the article, appeared "throughout the document: Paul Singer
web.archive.org/web/2015110317…
When the New York Daily News obtained a leaked 140-page strategy memo from the Giuliani campaign in January "one name," according to the article, appeared "throughout the document: Paul Singer
web.archive.org/web/2015110317…
Singer was asked by the campaign to raise cash from Wall Street, recruiting other big-money donors and even contacting 9/11 survivors and victims’ family members to support Giuliani’s bid for the Republican nomination.
Since then, Singer has become one of Giuliani’s most important fundraisers, bundling more than $500,000 for the campaign. Singer and employees of his hedge fund, Elliott Associates, have chipped in an additional $168,000. The campaign frequently uses his private jet.
Summer 2007, as part of a fundraising shakeup, Giuliani made Singer a senior policy adviser focusing on the Middle East, a plum spot for the billionaire, given his ties to neoconservative outfits like the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs.
Indeed, in a newsletter last March, Singer added his name to the list of Giuliani advisers who have advocated bombing Iran. "We think that it is necessary to do so," he wrote, "and soon."
In late Sept 2007 Singer & Republicans in California w/ ties to the Giuliani campaign were pushing a ballot initiative that would award the state’s electoral votes by district rather than winner-take-all, a move that could potentially throw a close election to a Republican.
The group leading the drive was funded via a previously unknown organization in Missouri with exactly one donation of $175,000. When that outfit refused to divulge who made the contribution, the two GOP strategists in charge of the initiative quit in frustration.
Eventually, as questions mounted, Singer admitted to being the sole contributor but claimed complete independence from the Giuliani campaign. Dem lawyers in Cali believed otherwise, so they filed a complaint with the FEC alleging a Giuliani-connected "money laundering operation"
Only when Kensington sued Congo in NY under a RICO statute (which would triple a final judgment to $375M), was it revealed that Kensington was a subsidiary of Singer’s fund. The fund retained as counsel Ted Olson, GW Bush’s initial choice to replace Alberto Gonzales as AG.
After members of the Congolese government amassed large hotel bills at a UN summit in New York, Kensington lobbied the World Bank to block scheduled debt relief for the country, according to two sources close to the Congolese government.
The fund placed op-eds in influential newspapers, produced letters of support from members of Congress and even filed a lawsuit in Brussels against the Belgian government to confiscate a 10 million euro foreign aid payment from Belgium to Congo.
(In a separate case against Argentina, Elliott has enlisted former top Clinton Admin officials to persuade the country to pay debts acquired at 85% discounts.) "They’re completely amoral," says David Skeel,prof of corporate law at UPenn. "It’s almost a matter of pride to them"
7 Aug 2014
It was 2009. Singer, through a brilliantly complex financial manoeuvre, took control of Delphi Automotive, the sole supplier of most of the auto parts needed by General Motors and Chrysler. Both auto firms were already in bankruptcy.
theguardian.com/business/econo…
It was 2009. Singer, through a brilliantly complex financial manoeuvre, took control of Delphi Automotive, the sole supplier of most of the auto parts needed by General Motors and Chrysler. Both auto firms were already in bankruptcy.
theguardian.com/business/econo…
Singer and co-investors demanded the US Treasury pay them billions, including $350m (£200m) in cash immediately, or – as the Singer consortium threatened – "we'll shut you down". They would cut off GM's parts. Literally.
GM and Chrysler, with no more than a couple of days' worth of parts to hand, would have shut down, permanently; forced into liquidation.
Obama's negotiator, Treasury deputy Steven Rattner, called the vulture funds' demand "extortion" – a characterisation of Singer repeated last week by Argentina President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.
But while Fernández declared "I cannot as president submit the country to such extortion," Obama submitted within days. Ultimately, the US Treasury quietly paid the Singer consortium a cool $12.9bn in cash and subsidies from the US Treasury's auto bailout fund.
Singer responded to Obama's largesse by quickly shutting down 25 of Delphi's 29 US auto parts plants, shifting 25,000 jobs to Asia. Singer's Elliott Management pocketed $1.29bn of which Singer personally garnered the lion's share.
3 Sept 2017
Start-Up Nation Central, the leading non-profit which connects international companies to Israeli tech firms, is naming Guy Hilton as its new general manager.
web.archive.org/web/2019040222…
Start-Up Nation Central, the leading non-profit which connects international companies to Israeli tech firms, is naming Guy Hilton as its new general manager.
web.archive.org/web/2019040222…
Start-Up Nation Central [est. ~2012?] came about after billionaire hedge fund manager Paul Singer read Dan Senor’s best-selling book “Start-Up Nation” and sought ways to connect multinational corporations with burgeoning innovation trends in Israel.
As a public service non-profit, Start-Up Nation brings both foreign companies and Israeli start-ups together without charging either side for its database.
Many of their financial services clients, for example, are looking at opening R&D centers or to embed Israeli technology into their company. Other sought-out industries include cybersecurity, digital healthcare, and the “internet-of-things,” or smart devices.
While the firm has already connected more than 600 Israeli companies with customers from 40 countries, the five-year-old organization is ramping up its activities with the appointment of Hilton.
“We are responding to growing interest from across the globe and from within Israel. To meet this demand, we are developing talent within our organization and adding new talent,” CEO Eugene Kandel said, who Hilton will report to.
Hilton, 43, is an Israeli businessman with Irish roots who has previously worked for Amdocs, Kodak and Microsoft.
“We believe we can deliver even better service to the local [Israeli] ecosystem, and provide it with stronger and more impactful connections to corporations, governments, institutions and leaders around the world looking for innovation," Hilton said.
Start-Up Nation Central connects many companies and government agencies which know that Israel is home to cutting-edge technology and want to hire the local know-how but are unsure how to navigate the Israeli market.
Through its Start-Up Nation Finder, which includes more than 5,000 Israeli firms, platform offers international companies a starting place from which to locate Israeli companies offering cutting-edge technology.
“If you’re a corporate and you’re not here in Israel, you are at a competitive disadvantage,” said CEO Kandel, explaining why multinational companies would look to access the Israeli market.
In terms of online queries, most companies hail from the US, India and the United Kingdom.
The non-profit’s connections between international companies and Israeli firms have led to dozens of contracts, investments, and the opening of local innovation hubs.
The non-profit’s connections between international companies and Israeli firms have led to dozens of contracts, investments, and the opening of local innovation hubs.
20 June 2013
The American Task Force Argentina, the group advocating for full repayment on the bonds, has launched a broad attack on Argentina in its PR campaign.
web.archive.org/web/2020102617…
The American Task Force Argentina, the group advocating for full repayment on the bonds, has launched a broad attack on Argentina in its PR campaign.
web.archive.org/web/2020102617…
Last Thursday’s Politico ad, paid for by ATFA, slammed the country as a safe haven for narcotics traffickers. Another ATFA ad accuses Argentine Pres Kirchner of making a “pact with the Devil,” pointing to a legal memo re: Argentina’s prosecution of Iranians in a terrorism case
ATFA’s website describes the group as “an alliance of organizations united for a just and fair reconciliation” of Argentina’s debt default. ATFA spent at least $150,000 lobbying Congress in the first three months of 2013, w/ the biggest chunk going to Covington & Burling.
Last year, it spent just shy of $1 million on lobbyists, and since 2007, it has spent more than $3.8 million on K Street consultants.
Robert Raben, a former Hill staffer and Clinton administration official-turned-lobbyist, serves as the executive director of ATFA. “We do whatever we can to get our government and media’s attention focused on what a bad actor Argentina is”
Among the investment funds listed as members of ATFA is Elliott Management, a hedge fund controlled by billionaire and major Republican donor Paul Singer.
According to docs filed by Argentina in a NY federal court lawsuit that Elliott Mgmt has brought against the country, an Elliott subsidiary, NML, paid ~$48.7M in 2008 for the Argentine debt in question. Now, the company is demanding that Argentina repay it $1.44B+ interest.
Another fund in the ATFA coalition, FH International Asset Management LLC, is run by Eric Hermann, who successfully collectedon distressed debt from Liberia in late 2010, despite international pressure not to sue a country that was, at the time, the third poorest nation on earth.
While Singer and Hermann pursue Argentina in court, Washington lobbyists like Raben are making sure the issue remains in the public eye more than a decade after the initial default.
ATFA has two co-chairs: Robert Shapiro, a Clinton administration undersecretary of commerce, and Nancy Soderberg, who achieved the rank of ambassador in the Clinton era as an alternative U.S. representative to the United Nations.
Like Raben, both Shapiro and Soderberg founded consulting and advocacy firms after leaving public service. Shapiro’s financial consulting firm is called Sonencon Inc., and Soderberg is CEO of Soderberg Global Solutions.
Raben & ATFA’s chairs earn their consulting fees in part by writing op-eds on how unstable Argentina is & how its refusal to pay vulture funds serves as a warning not to do business there
Since 2009, pieces have appeared in WSJ, The Hill, Daily Telegraph & HuffPo, among others
Since 2009, pieces have appeared in WSJ, The Hill, Daily Telegraph & HuffPo, among others
HuffPost published 3 op-eds on the topic, 1 by Soderberg in 2009, 1 by Shapiro in 2011 & 1 by Raben in April 2013. The connection between the blog posts & the lobbying campaign to force Argentina to pay its bondholders was uncovered by HuffPost during the reporting of this story
(The posts were subsequently removed for the authors’ failure to disclose their conflict of interest when the posts were submitted.)
So far, Raben claimed that ATFA has “been able to convince a few other nations to vote against Argentina on a variety of issues.”
So far, Raben claimed that ATFA has “been able to convince a few other nations to vote against Argentina on a variety of issues.”
Neustar
Covington & Burling
Covington & Burling
https://twitter.com/nimkef/status/1439071197522759681?s=20&t=RPermoQO6_vK7gFjnuA8fw
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
