Paul Singer (businessman)

Paul Elliott Singer (born 22 August 1944) is an American hedge fund manager, activist investor, and the founder, president, and co-CEO of Elliott Management.

As of March 2024, Forbes estimated his net worth at US$6.1 billion.

Fortune described Singer as one of the "smartest and toughest money managers" in the hedge fund industry.

A number of sources have branded him a vulture capitalist, largely on account of his role at Elliott Management, which is a vulture fund.

The Independent has described him as "a pioneer in the business of buying up sovereign bonds on the cheap, and then going after countries for unpaid debts".

Singer's Elliott Management has focused on activist campaigns, in which they take an equity stake in a company and agitate using influence and voting rights to encourage change, and they have also expanded into private equity.

Singer's political activities include financial support for LGBTQ rights.

He has provided funding to the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, is a strong opponent of raising taxes for the wealthiest 1 percent of taxpayers, such as himself, and opposes aspects of the Dodd-Frank Act.

Singer is active in Republican Party politics, and he and others affiliated with Elliott Management are collectively "the top source of contributions" to the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

Singer was born in 1944 and grew up in Teaneck, New Jersey, in a Jewish family, one of three children of a Manhattan pharmacist and a homemaker.

He obtained his B.S. in psychology from the University of Rochester in 1966 and a J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1969.

In 1974, Singer went to work as an attorney in the real estate division of the investment bank Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette.

In 1977, with a convertible arbitrage "winning formula", Singer left law to create his own investment company.

He founded the hedge fund Elliott Associates L.P. with US$1.3 million in seed capital from various friends and family members.

In the early 1990s, Singer began using the strategy of purchasing sovereign debt from nations in or near default, such as Argentina, and Peru, through his NML Capital Limited, and Republic of the Congo through Kensington International Inc. Singer's practice of purchasing distressed debt from companies and sovereign states and pursuing full payment through the courts has led to criticism.

Singer and EMC defend their model, saying it is "a fight against charlatans who refuse to play by the market's rules", and supporters of the practice have said it "help[s] keep kleptocratic governments in check".

In 1996, Elliott bought defaulted Peruvian debt for $11.4 million.

Elliott won a $58 million judgment and Peru had to repay the sum in full under the pari passu rule.

The company pursued "more than 40 campaigns aimed at tech companies" between 2004 and 2015, according to Reuters.

According to Fortune, Singer has been involved "in most of the big post-Financial crisis of 2007–2008 restructurings".

In 2009 The Guardian reported that 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".

Ultimately, the US Treasury paid Elliott Management "$12.9 billion in cash and subsidies from the US Treasury's auto bailout fund".

According to The Telegraph in 2011, Elliott is "one of the oldest hedge funds on Wall Street".

Singer is also the founder and CEO of NML Capital Limited, a Cayman Islands-based offshore unit of Elliott Management.

In December 2011 Elliott Associates sued Vietnam's state-owned shipbuilder Vinashin in the UK for defaulting the year before on a US$600 million syndicated loan.

In February 2014, Singer controlled $23 billion (£19 billion) of funds and was the ninth largest investor on Wall Street.

In May 2014 the French Financial Markets Regulator fined Elliott a record €14 million ($22 million) for insider trading, a ruling which the company appealed.

In June 2015, Singer was an active activist investor with Citrix Systems, pushing for various changes.

In a long-standing dispute between Singer and members of the Lee family over a merger between Samsung and Cheil Industries, in 2015 Samsung published numerous cartoons of Singer as an anthropomorphic vulture on its corporate website.

The cartoons were denounced by Singer and others as antisemitic.

Samsung responded several days later denouncing antisemitism, and pulled the images from their website.

Forbes rated Singer's net worth as $2.1 billion in 2015, and $2.2 billion in 2016.

As of November 2015, Elliott Management Corporation oversees Elliott Associates and Elliott International Limited, which together have more than $27 billion in assets under management in a "multi-strategy fund".

The corporation includes a private equity division.

Termed a "specialist in activism in technology companies" by The Wall Street Journal in June 2015, Elliott Management's varied portfolio also includes a prominent tech component.

in 2018, Elliott Management took control of Italian football club AC Milan.

On 1 February 2020, several weeks before many Americans had heard of COVID-19, Singer wrote a memo to his employees about preparing for the possibility of being quarantined for at least a month due to the virus.

After Elliott Management took a stake in Twitter, Singer pushed to oust Jack Dorsey and control four seats on the board after Dorsey announced he would move to Africa.

A deal was reached that gave Elliott Management a seat on the board and left Dorsey as CEO.

Singer is a vulture capitalist because of Elliott Management Corporation's investments in distressed debt.