The founder of Third Point LLC, Daniel Loeb is Wall Street’s deadly pen—a hedge fund manager whose letters to derelict corporate managers produce spectacular investment returns.
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Early years
Daniel Loeb admits that he always had a big mouth: He claims that he even hired a bodyguard to protect him from the bullies he offended at his Los Angeles elementary school. The son of a lawyer and a historian, Loeb began investing in the stock market in high school. He transferred from UC Berkeley to attend Columbia in NY. By the time he was a senior, he’d amassed $120,000 in profits—and then promptly lost the whole amount with one bad investment. (Loeb says it taught him an important lesson in the dangers of over-concentration.)
After working for Warburg Pincus for many years in the late ’80s, Daniel Loeb grew bored and got a job at Island Records where he helped the company’s founder, Chris Blackwell, secure financing. After a few years living downtown—he lived on Avenue D then— Daniel Loeb returned to finance with working at a small New York financial firm and at Jeffries & Co. in Los Angeles. He returned to New York to join Citicorp in the capacity of a junk bond salesman before founding Third Point in 1995 with $3.3 million from family and friends.