Daniel S. Loeb

Daniel Seth Loeb (born December 18, 1961) is an American investor, hedge fund manager, and philanthropist.

He is the founder and chief executive of Third Point, a New York-based hedge fund focused on event-driven, value-oriented investing with $4 billion in assets under management, as of December 2023.

New York magazine noted that Loeb's "preferred strategy" is to buy into troubled companies, which "is the key to his success."

Loeb attended the University of California, Berkeley for two years and subsequently graduated from Columbia University with an economics degree in 1983.

At Columbia, he was a classmate of Barack Obama, whose presidential campaign he later offered significant financial support.

By his senior year at Columbia, he had made $120,000 in the stock market, but lost it all on an investment in a firm called Puritan-Bennett Inc. The loss taught him a lesson, he later said, in "overconcentrating positions".

From 1984-87, Loeb worked at private equity firm Warburg Pincus.

He then worked as director of corporate development at Island Records, a record label, where he focused on securing debt financing.

After Island Records, Loeb worked as a risk arbitrage analyst at Lafer Equity Investors and then, from 1991–94, as senior vice-president in the distressed debt department at Jefferies LLC, where he focused on bankruptcy analysis, trading bank loans and selling distressed securities.

He moved on to become a Citigroup vice president from 1994–95, in charge of high-yield bond sales.

Loeb started Third Point Management in 1995 "with $3.3 million from family and friends".

Under Loeb's guidance, Third Point Management's annualized returns since inception (Dec. 1996 – Dec. 2015) total approximately +16.2%.

In 2012, the firm returned +21.2%, outperforming the S&P 500's return of +16.0% and making it one of best performing hedge funds that year.

In 2012, Loeb, who through Third Point LLC, held 5.8% of Yahoo! stock, sought seats on the Yahoo!

board for himself, former NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker, former Goldman Sachs executive Harry Wilson and former MTV Networks executive Michael J. Wolf.

On May 3, 2012, Loeb revealed that the new CEO of Yahoo!, Scott Thompson, did not have a computer science degree, as had been commonly assumed for many years.

On May 13, 2012, Yahoo!

announced that Thompson would be stepping down, and nominated Loeb, Wilson and Wolf to the Yahoo!

board.

Marissa Mayer was then appointed as CEO to replace Thompson.

In 2013, the firm returned +25.2%, while the S&P 500 returned +32.4%.

Loeb appeared in Forbes' 2013 list of the world's 40 richest hedge-fund managers and traders.

In July 2013, Loeb, Wilson, and Wolf resigned from Yahoo!'s board, leaving Yahoo!

with a seven-member board.

Yahoo!

agreed to buy back 40 million shares at $1.6 billion from Third Point.

In May 2013, Loeb proposed splitting Sony's entertainment and electronics businesses, arguing that such a split would increase profits.

On June 18, 2013, Third Point LLC announced it had increased its stake in Sony to 70 million shares, or about 7 percent, valued at $1.4 billion.

According to Bloomberg.com, Sony's board of directors considered Loeb's proposal and hired Morgan Stanley and Citigroup, Inc. to evaluate it.

Actor George Clooney, whose Smokehouse Pictures production company has a contract with Sony's entertainment division, publicly opposed the proposal.

Regarding his active involvement in the companies in which he invests, Loeb was described as "one of the most successful activists" in 2014.

Loeb is the son of Ronald and Clare (née Spark) Loeb.

He was raised in Santa Monica, California, where he attended Palisades Charter High School.

In high school, he took AP classes, started a skateboard company, and was nicknamed "Milo Minderbinder" by one of his teachers (after a character in the novel Catch-22 who had a fascination with the stock market).

His father was a partner at the Los Angeles law firm of Irell & Manella LLP and general counsel for Williams-Sonoma, Inc. His father also served as an outside director of Mattel, Inc. for over 30 years and during one period became interim President of Mattel.

His mother is a historian and independent scholar.

Loeb's great-aunt, Ruth Handler, created the Barbie doll and co-founded Mattel Inc.

In 2014, the firm returned +5.7%, while the S&P 500 returned +13.7%.

In 2015, the firm returned -1.4%, while the S&P 500 returned +1.4%.

In 2017, it was reported the firm returned 18.1% net of fees in the first 11 months of the year.