Less than two weeks after SAC Capital Advisors, the hedge fund owned by the billionaire trader Steven A. Cohen, agreed to pay the government $616 million to settle accusations of insider trading, Mr. Cohen has decided to buy a little something for himself.
A renowned art collector, Mr. Cohen has bought Picasso’s “Le Rêve” from the casino owner Stephen A. Wynn for $155 million, according to a person with direct knowledge of the sale who was not authorized to speak publicly. Although prices for top works of art have soared to new heights recently, Mr. Cohen’s acquisition is one of the most expensive private art sales transacted.
It is at least the second $100 million-plus acquisition of art by Mr. Cohen in the last two years. He is said to have paid about $120 million in 2012 for four bronze sculptures of a woman’s back, created by Henri Matisse over 23 years.
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Mr. Cohen, who is worth $9.5 billion according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, continues to loom large on the international art scene even as he fights to contain the fallout from the government’s investigation of insider trading at SAC.
Federal prosecutors have tied at least nine former or current SAC employees to insider trading while they were at the fund; four have pleaded guilty.
Last November, the authorities ratcheted up the pressure on Mr. Cohen by bringing a case against a former SAC portfolio manager that, for the first time, tied Mr. Cohen to trades the government contends were illegal. Investors have asked to withdraw $1.7 billion from his $15 billion fund.
2013 Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New YorkThe billionaire Steven A. Cohen reportedly has bought Picasso’s “Le Rêve” from the casino owner Stephen A. Wynn for $155 million.
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Mr. Cohen, 56, has not been charged with any wrongdoing. He has told his investors and employees that he believes he has acted appropriately at all times.
Meanwhile, he continues to buy and sell stocks from his headquarters in Stamford, Conn. Over two decades, SAC has posted some of the best returns on Wall Street, averaging 30 percent annually. This year, the fund has gained about 4 percent through mid-March, outperforming the average hedge fund’s return but lagging the broader stock market index.
Friends of Mr. Cohen have said that an ability to compartmentalize has allowed him to concentrate on investing amid SAC’s escalating legal problems.
And despite the recent charge against his net worth — the $616 million settlement will effectively come from Mr. Cohen, who owns 100 percent of SAC — he has continued to add to his world-class art collection, which includes paintings by Jackson Pollock; masterworks by Monet and Manet; and Damien Hirst’s shark submerged in a tank of formaldehyde.
The newest addition, the 1932 “Le Rêve,” which depicts Picasso’s mistress Marie-Thérèse Walter asleep in an armchair, has been coveted by Mr. Cohen for years. He first tried to buy it from Mr. Wynn in 2006, agreeing to pay $135 million. But the deal was called off after Mr. Wynn, who has an eye disease, put his elbow through the painting. An art restorer repaired the canvas without, apparently, diminishing its value.
The Picasso purchase was reported earlier by The New York Post.
The painting had been a prized possession of Mr. Wynn, who displayed it in his Las Vegas art gallery and even named one of his hotels Le Rêve (The Dream). But recently he has been selling more art than he has been buying. Last November, Mr. Wynn auctioned another 1932 Picasso painting of Ms. Walter, “Nature Morte aux Tulipes,” at Sotheby’s. It sold for $41.5 million.
This is not the first time that Mr. Cohen has bought art directly from Mr. Wynn. In 2005, he bought several paintings, including a van Gogh and a Gauguin, both of which had hung in Mr. Wynn’s Bellagio Gallery of Fine Arts in Las Vegas. Mr. Cohen is said to have paid Mr. Wynn about $110 million for the works.
William Acquavella, the New York dealer who brokered the 2005 deal, declined to comment when asked on Tuesday if he also put together the recent sale of “Le Rêve.”
In addition to the Picasso and the Matisse bronzes, Mr. Cohen has made at least one other purchase in excess of $100 million. In 2006 he bought de Kooning’s “Woman III” from David Geffen, the entertainment mogul, for a reported $137.5 million.
Befitting a trader, Mr. Cohen has also been selling. Last November, he put an abstract painting by the German artist Gerhard Richter at a Christie’s auction, but it failed to sell.
More recently, he quietly offered other artworks through private channels, dealers said on Tuesday, in an apparent effort to raise cash for what they said they believe was his Picasso acquisition.
While he displays much of his art in his 35,000-square-foot home in Greenwich, Conn., and SAC’s nearby headquarters, Mr. Cohen also lends his work and makes gifts to museums.
Last month, the Museum of Modern Art announced that Mr. Cohen and his wife, Alexandra, had made good on a number of promised gifts, including an untitled painting by the German artist Martin Kippenberger and a 1968 canvas by Ed Ruscha.
In an e-mailed statement at the time of the announcement, Mr. Cohen said, “We have a personal connection to these artists and are thrilled that museum visitors will view these pieces in their appropriate contexts as part of MoMA’s permanent collection.”
The spotlight on his art dealings may soon shift to his legal situation.
On Thursday, Mr. Cohen’s hedge fund will look to complete a major step toward resolving its regulatory woes.
Lawyers from SAC and the Securities and Exchange Commission are scheduled to present the terms of the settlement of two insider-trading lawsuits before Judge Victor Marrero in Federal District Court in Manhattan.
Legal specialists said one aspect of the agreement, allowing SAC to settle the case without admitting wrongdoing, could be called into question by the judge, as courts have recently criticized the commission for employing this settlement technique.
And Mr. Cohen and his employees remain in the government’s cross hairs.
In announcing the SAC settlements this month, the S.E.C.’s acting chief of enforcement noted that they did not prevent the future filing of charges against Mr. Cohen.
Prosecutors are close to deciding whether to file a criminal case against Michael Steinberg, a senior SAC portfolio manager, a person with direct knowledge of the matter said.
Article source: http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/03/26/for-cohen-a-big-art-deal/?partner=rss&emc=rss
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