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Daniel Neuberger | |
---|---|
Born | Daniel Vincent LaRouche August 17, 1956 |
Education | New Lincoln School Hamilton College University of Chicago (AB) Harvard University (JD, MBA) |
Occupation(s) | Investor, philanthropist |
Political party | Democratic |
Spouse |
Alicia Gleason (m. 1990) |
Children | 3 |
Daniel Vincent Neuberger (born August 17, 1956) is an American billionaire investor and philanthropist who is the founder and present chief executive of the Chicago-based investment management firm Hyde Park Capital Partners, known for its focus on emerging markets and long-term investment approach. Neuberger has been referred to as "perhaps the most successful student of Warren Buffett", having mimicked Berkshire Hathaway's insurance-driven asset strategy. He is also the owner and publisher of The Nation magazine and since 2016 the majority shareholder of Tribune Publishing, which owns the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Philadelphia Inquirer, New York Daily News, The Baltimore Sun and several other newspapers. With a net worth of $23.4 billion as of April 2024, he was ranked by Forbes as the second wealthiest person in Illinois and 36th on the Forbes 400.[2]
His philanthropic interests are diverse and concentrated mainly in the fields of public policy, international understanding and development,and culture and the arts, and has founded or sponsored the Neuberger Center for Economic and Policy Research, the Dialogue of Civilizations Research Institute, the West–Eastern Divan Orchestra and the Barenboim–Said Akademie, the Institute for New Economic Thinking, the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft... He sits on the boards of the University of Chicago, St. John's College, the Field Museum of Natural History, the Chicago Lyric Opera...
Early life and career
[edit]Neuberger was born on August 17, 1956 in New York City to psychiatrist Janet Neuberger and political theorist and activist Lyndon LaRouche, at the time working as a management consultant; both had met while members of the Socialist Workers Party. The LaRouche family enjoyed an upper-middle class life, living in an apartment on Central Park West. In 1963 his parents separated, and he was subsequently raised by his mother while his father's political activities gained notoriety. He attended the experimental New Lincoln School on the Upper West Side, graduating in 1974. He subsequently enrolled at Hamilton College, but transferred to the University of Chicago in 1975. That same year, he legally adopted his mother's maiden name. He graduated with honors in 1978 with a degree in Philosophy and Mathematics, writing his thesis on Herbartian metaphysics.
From 1978 to 1980 he worked as a management consultant at Bain & Company. He then attended Harvard Law School before starting a dual degree program at the Harvard Business School, graduating in 1984 with a dual MBA and JD, and a member of the Order of the Coif. During his years in law and business school Neuberger reconciled with his father, occasionally joining on international trips, such as to India in 1982, where he met Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
He was admitted to the New York and later the Illinois and District of Columbia Bars, but chose not to practice law, turning down an offer at the prestigious Chicago law firm Kirkland & Ellis. Instead, upon graduation he was recruited for a position at Bain-spinoff Bain Capital, working directly under Mitt Romney, but resigned after a year to become an independent consultant. From 1985 to 1989 he operated a small boutique consulting firm in the Washington metropolitan area, which provided both management and legal consultancy services. Most of his clients were LaRouche-linked firms, including real estate, software, and publishing interests. One of his employees at the time noted that he acted as an informal general counsel and "fixer" for the movement, although operating at an arm's distance. According to a former co-worker, most of his work consisted of "getting their finances in order, ensuring legal compliance, and branching out their operations in to more lucrative related fields."
While these efforts were successful in bolstering his clients' profits, from 1987 the LaRouche organization was the subject of a massive federal and multi-state prosecution, which saw LaRouche and several associates convicted of contempt of court and credit card fraud. Neuberger was questioned extensively but avoided prosecution, and was reported to have acted as an informal "coordinator" for the defense, which achieved mixed success in having the convictions overturned. The organization repaid, with interest, over $3 million to people it was accused of having defrauded, but most convictions were upheld. While much of the movement's political arm was forced into bankruptcy, its commercial enterprises, which Neuberger helped restructure to limit their potential liability in such a scenario, emerged largely unscathed.
Investment career and other interests
[edit]In 1989, Neuberger founded Hyde Park Capital Partners (HPCP), along with Uwe von Papart, a former Swarthmore College professor and NCLC leader with a doctorate in mathematics and philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania, and Arthur Black, a classmate of Neuberger's from business school. Hyde Park, based in Alexandria, Virginia, was initially structured as a holding company for the various businesses Neuberger had previously consulted for and solicited investment. In the early 1990s it was restructured as a private equity firm and subsequently expanded into hedge funds, equities, and fixed income investments. In 1992 it moved its headquarters to Chicago, where it has remained since.
HPCP became notable for its long-term investment strategy—structuring its funds for 15 or even 20 years, as opposed to the usual 10—and its exposure to emerging markets, particularly in East and South East Asia, and later Russia. It also soon began investing in insurance companies, accessing their deep cash reserves to broaden their asset base. In 1996 it sold Computron, a software company, for $230 million to SAP. Another such investment was the Executive Intelligence Review, rebranded as Executive Intelligence, branching out to forecasting, market intelligence, and analysis; it was spun off in 2004. In 2009 it purchased Congressional Quarterly.
The firm gained widespread attention for having mostly limited its losses during the 1997 Asian financial crisis, after which its reputation in the Asia-Pacific region soared, becoming a hub for nervous institutional investors. In 2000 it gained a controlling stake in the Reinsurance Group of America, whose value has quadrupled as of 2019, and whose assets account for one-quarter of HPCP's total assets under management. In the 2000s the firm branched out into venture capital and launched several highly successful China-oriented funds.
In the 2010s the firm continued to grow, and became a popular partner of large international pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, and family offices, including the Qatar Investment Authority, the Malaysian Employees Provident Fund, and Mexican Retirement Funds Administrators. As of 2024, Hyde Park's total assets under management was US$417 billion.
Publishing interests
[edit]In 1995, Neuberger led a consortium that bought The Nation magazine from Arthur L. Carter for a reported price of "little over a million dollars". He made editor-in-chief Victor Navasky publisher, and Katrina vanden Heuvel editor-in-chief. In 2002, Neuberger bought out his partners, becoming sole owner of its parent company, The Nation Company L.P., and assumed the title of publisher, which he held until 2019. In 1998, he purchased the Asia Times newspaper from Thai newspaper mogul and occasional business partner Sondhi Limthongkul; von Papart became publisher. He is also a major shareholder of the successor to the LaRouche-run Executive Intelligence Review, EI Group. In 2003, he made an unsuccessful offer to purchase the Far Eastern Economic Review from Dow Jones, which rebuffed several offers and instead shuttered the publication.[3]
In 2013, Neuberger purchased 80% of the spun-off Tribune Publishing Company, which had divested its television interests to Tribune Media. Neuberger had in the preceding years increased his share holding in the parent company, and used his stake to negotiate a $460 million cash and stock deal more favorable than the original terms.[4] The company would be carrying less debt and with associated real estate and advertising holdings, including Tribune Tower.[5] Shortly thereafter, he purchased the Boston Globe for $70 million from the New York Times Company.[6] In 2014, he co-founded First Look Media with Pierre Omidyar, pledging a combined $250 million for "independent media ventures"; its most notable project to date has been the investigative media site The Intercept. In 2014 he also acquired the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News for approximately $88 million. In 2020 he won an auction for the bankrupt McClatchy Company and its 29 daily newspapers for $425 million, which would make the merged Tribune Publishing the largest newspaper publisher in the United States.[7]
Philanthropy, activism, and political activities
[edit]Over the decades, Neuberger has acquired a reputation as a leading philanthropist and sponsor of research in the fields of public policy, culture, and education. He has signed the Giving Pledge and has vowed to give away "98 percent" of his wealth.
In 1994, he provided funding for the Center for Economic and Policy Research, which in 2008 was renamed the Neuberger Center for Economic and Policy Research in recognition of his continued support. As of 2015, he had contributed a total of $180 million to the organization's activities. In 2009, he gave $20 million for the establishment of the Institute for New Economic Thinking in cooperation with George Soros, with whom he has occasionally collaborated on public policy endeavors. In 2019, he partnered with Soros and Charles Koch to found the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.
Inspired by visits to the World Economic Forum in the late 1980s, then seen mainly as an European gathering, Neuberger organized the first Mackinac Island Symposium in August 1993 to discuss global economic issues facing the "United States and the Americas at large". Since then, the conference, which takes place in the last week of August or first week of September, has grown into "a leading gathering of global economic and political leaders". It soon acquired a reputation as the "American" or "Summer Davos", at least until the World Economic Forum Meeting of the New Champions was initiated in 2007. The 2018 edition counted 2,500 participants, including 28 heads of state or government. The success of the Mackinac Symposium, first sponsored by Hyde Park and later by the Neuberger Center, has led to the emergence of a global series of "Neuberger Symposia" and "Mackinac Fellows". In 2019, the Neuberger Center organized a similar event in Abidjan, the Africa Future Symposium (Symposium sur l'avenir africain), in which 18 African heads of state or governments were participants. Occasional "Summer" meetings of the Symposium have also been held in South America, typically in January.
Neuberger has over the decades a major financial supporter of the endeavors of Daniel Barenboim, whom he first met while the latter was music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Aside from being a major donor to the Orchestra, in the 1990s he contributed to the West–Eastern Divan Orchestra, set up by Barenboim and Palestinian-American academic Edward Said. More recently, he contributed €15 million in 2012 towards the establishment of the Barenboim–Said Akademie; Neuberger's foundation is one of its sponsors and he now sits as Chair of its board. A noted Wagnerian, he has for many years been a patron of the Bayreuth Festival, and in 2014 donated €10 million towards the restoration of the Bayreuth Festspielhaus.
Academic philanthropy
[edit]He has been a major donor to his almae matres, Harvard and the University of Chicago, although substantially more so for the latter. As of 2017 his total giving to the two universities was estimated at $80 million and $220 million, respectively. One notable episode occured in 2008, when Neuberger found himself "outbid" for the naming rights to the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, his offered donation of $175 million coming distant second to a later $300 million pledge by fellow alumnus David G. Booth, after whom the school was eventually renamed.[8] An offered $30 million to the University of Chicago Institute of Politics was turned down when Neuberger made clear the offer was conditional on the removal of founding director David Axelrod.
He had more success elsewhere—a $35 million donation in 2006 for the renovation of the University of Chicago Law School's Eero Saarinen-designed building resulted in it being renamed David Neuberger Hall. In 2014, in Neuberger gave the Harris School of Public Policy Studies two gifts totaling $32.5 million for a physical expansion. A former residence hall designed by architect Edward Durell Stone was renovated and renamed The Neuberger Center, housing the Harris School of Public Policy as of 2019.[9] An undergraduate house of the new Woodlawn Commons will also be named after Neuberger.[10]
At Harvard Neuberger has endowed several scholarships, research programs, and professorships. He has also sponsored the private Institute for Cultural Diplomacy (Institut für Kulturdiplomatie) in Berlin, housed at the Palais am Festungsgraben, which offers undergraduate and postgraduate degrees, and which is affilated with the DoCRI.
International initiatives
[edit]In 2003, inspired by the appeal of Iranian President Mohammad Khatami for a "Dialogue among civilizations" in response to Huntington's theory of a "Clash of Civilizations", Neuberger, along with civil society representatives from around the world, organized the Rhodes Forum for the Dialogue of Civilizations with the support of UNESCO. Following two years of lobbying and activism, and with the sponsorship of Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero and Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, this was formalized as the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) at the 59th General Assembly of the United Nations (UN) in 2005, and the Rhodes Forum was institutionalized as the Dialogue of Civilizations Research Institute (DoCRI) headquartered in Berlin, to support the work of the UNAOC initiative. The first forum of the Alliance of Civilizations was held in Madrid, Spain on January 15–16, 2008; Neuberger through DoCRI was a major financial and logistical supporter. It was attended by over 900 participants in 89 official delegations from 78 countries.[11] In 2007, in the lead up to the second UNAOC forum, Neuberger was named Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for the Alliance of Civilizations, along with DoCRI co-chair Vladimir Yakunin. DoCRI is also affiliated with the Institute for Cultural Diplomacy.
As a result of his business and initiatives, Neuberger has formed close relationships with several world leaders, particularly those of a left-wing or populist orientation. One of the longest lasting has been with Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, whom he has hosted several times in the US and at various forums. Neuberger has repeatedly been tied with Turkish lobbying activities in Washington on a number of issues and given money to support Turkish aid efforts in Somalia. Controversial cleric Fethullah Gulen was a notable partner of the DoCRI until the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt, after which Neuberger-related organizations broke ties with the Gulen movement. This has also translated into strong condemnation of the Qatar blockade and criticism of Saudi Arabia-United States relations; in 2018 Neuberger met with Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani on "economic issues" and investment. Another notable relationship has been with Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, dating to the 1990s; when Mahathir took office for a second time in 2018, Neuberger hosted him on a visit to the US to meet with business leaders to rebuild confidence after the 1Malaysia Development Berhad scandal. In 2019 Neuberger defended Bolivian ex-president Evo Morales, after his resignation, describing his removal as a "coup" and sharing a Neuberger Center study refuting OAS reports of electoral fraud.[12]
Political activities
[edit]Neuberger has been a consistent supporter and donor to the Democratic Party and progressive causes, saying that he "proudly accepted the label of class traitor" and at another time declaring that "no amount of money will change the fact that the world view which guides my activities is fundamentally that of the left". In 2018, Neuberger supported the gubernatorial campaign of Daniel Biss.
Neuberger has been a consistent supporter of US detente with Iran and was a major contributor to pro-JCPOA lobbying efforts. He has been a frequent critic of the "aggressive posture" against Russia, sanctions, and the "attempt to provoke a Second Cold War with Russia or China". He was a founding member and financial sponsor of the revived American Committee for East–West Accord.
Relationship with the LaRouche movement
[edit]This section's factual accuracy is disputed. (January 2025) |
The nature and indeed, existence, of Neuberger's relationship with the political movement founded by his father has long been a matter of controversy. Neuberger has consistently denied having anything to do with the movement and said that his relationship with his father was "strictly personal", an assertion that has however been contradicted by observers, critics, and former associates.
According to these critics, Neuberger took control of the movement in the early 1990s after prevailing in a power struggle with his father's second wife, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, while LaRouche was imprisoned on fraud charges. Neuberger and a small group of trusted advisors reportedly organized a series of self-criticism and "ego-stripping" sessions in which the movement's strategy was deemed to be "defective" as "conditions were not conducive to open political activity". Rather than contest elections and openly organize, the movement's efforts were to be redirected towards disseminating its "core principles" and embarking on the "the long march through the institutions". Neuberger and other linked to these ideas have repeatedly and vigorously dismissed such accounts as "pure, wild conspiracy theory".
Personal life
[edit]In 1990 Neuberger married Alice Gleason, daughter of Andrew M. Gleason, a former professor of his at Harvard, with whom he has three children—Alexandra, Carina, and Jonathan. Neuberger's children all attended Lake Forest Academy, and his two adult children went on to attend Harvard and the University of Chicago. Neuberger and his family live in Lake Forest, Illinois in a 24,000 sq ft (2,200 m2) historic house fronting Lake Michigan on 12 acres, built in 1930 to a design by David Adler. Neuberger also owns an apartment in the Loop, a residence on Central Park West in New York, a 12,000 sq ft (1,100 m2) house in Woodland Normanstone, Washington, D.C. completed in 2016, an apartment in Mitte, Berlin, and a 16,400 sq ft (1,520 m2) "lodge" on the 780-acre Bar-B-Bar Ranch in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
References
[edit]- ^ Forbes Staff. "Forbes profile: Daniel Neuberger". Forbes.com. Retrieved 23 September 2019.
- ^ "David Neuberger profile". Forbes. Retrieved January 25, 2015.
- ^ Bowring, Philip (30 October 2004). "Without Feer". South China Morning Post. Retrieved 30 September 2019.
- ^ James, Meg (October 19, 2012). "Rupert Murdoch, other potential buyers eye L.A. Times". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 30 September 2019.
- ^ Edmonds, Rick (July 9, 2013). "Neuberger rumored to be putting together a new bid for Tribune newspapers". Poynter. Retrieved 30 September 2019.
- ^ Healy, Beth (2013-08-13). "Chicago hedge funder in deal to purchase Globe". The Boston Globe. Retrieved 2019-06-28.
- ^ "McClatchy Concludes Auction Process". PRNewswire. McClatchy. July 12, 2020. Retrieved 2 June 2021.
- ^ Lorin, Janet (May 11, 2017). "For Business School Naming Rights, the Price Is Only Going Up". Bloomberg Businessweek. Retrieved 10 December 2019.
- ^ "The Neuberger Center At Harris Public Policy". Harris School of Public Policy. Retrieved November 28, 2017.
- ^ "University announces names for seven new College residential houses". UChicago News. September 11, 2019. Retrieved 10 December 2019.
- ^ "The First Forum of the UN Alliance of Civilizations" Archived 2009-03-03 at the Wayback Machine – AoC website.
- ^ "No Evidence That Bolivian Election Results Were Affected by Irregularities or Fraud, Statistical Analysis Shows". Neuberger Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR). November 8, 2019. Retrieved 25 November 2019.