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Mets owner Steve Cohen’s attempt to bail out a former business protege’s investment firm has some fans worried.
Cohen joined forces this week with fellow finance tycoon Ken Griffin to help bail out Melvin Capital, a hedge fund that placed a sizable bet against GameStop’s stock.
Melvin took a beating as rookie investors on Reddit helped push up the game retailer’s share price, putting pressure on the fund’s short position, a bet that the stock would fall.
Cohen’s Point72 Asset Management and Griffin’s firm Citadel gave Melvin a combined $2.75 billion investment on Monday to help it through the market turmoil.
Melvin founder Gabe Plotkin began his career at Citadel and then worked as a portfolio manager for Cohen before starting his own fund. But neither Point72 nor Citadel will get controlling shares of Melvin under this week’s deal.
Point72, as it happens, also owns a small 26,878-share stake in GameStop, according to Bloomberg data.
Cohen, now famous for interacting with people on Twitter, reacted on the platform on Tuesday, writing: “Rough crowd on Twitter tonight. Hey stock jockeys keep bringing it.”
And it also got some Mets’ fans attention, who are likely touchy about owners’ finances after the Wilpons saw their spending drop after being caught up in the Bernie Madoff scandal.
A user named @AreolaBorealis responded to Cohen: “Is this Gamestop business [affecting] the Mets payroll? I mean that’s the main story in all of this.”
Cohen replied: “Why would one have anything to do with the other?”
Cohen is worth more than $14 billion and purchased the team last fall for $2.4 billion, outbidding other groups — including one led by Alex Rodriguez and Jennifer Lopez.
— Additional reporting by Thornton McEnery
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