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Well thank you very much for coming this afternoon . Reshape you're doing it. Welcome. So tell me this. I read the other day that you opened your fund for 24 hours and five billion dollars showed up. Now how does somebody raise five billion dollars in 24 hours. Usually takes me a year to get that much money. So how did you do that. It wasn't exactly true. It was true in the sense that once the the offering was open because it was first come first served there was a lot of demand and a twenty three hours later it was filled up. But it took a number of months of preparation circulating draft documents that make you feel better that you didn't do it in just 24 hours. But suppose I may call you after the 24 hour period time and said I'm a friend of yours I knew you from law school. I'd like to get in any room to get in later. It's a closed no. That was we set a limit of five billion dollars and so how much do you know we took. Overall I think it's 34 billion dollars at this point. So you started your fund in what year. Nineteen seventy seven. And how much money did you have then. One point three million dollars. If we have to get that from friends and family I was a practicing lawyer and in early 1977 I decided that what I'd been doing managing a small amount of a tiny amount of friends and family money was much more interesting than practicing law. So you had gone. You grew up in Teaneck New Jersey and Manhattan and then you went to University of Rochester. Right. And then you went to Harvard Law School . Right. So when you went to Harvard Law School did you think that people were smarter than you thought they were going to be or not as smart as you thought they were gonna be way smarter than I actually thought it would be very smart and the professors were smart and it was a it was a wonderful experience but it was a it was a daunting experience especially because I didn't exactly like what I was what I was doing. But you went to practice law in New York in the absence of a better idea. So I practice law in New York initially as well and I practice law in Washington and to Europe. So when I gave up the practice of law to go into business my mother said you know you went to law school. What are you gonna do. You don't know anything about business. What did your mother say when you said I'm going to get about the practice of law. She said you know what can you earn a living . And my mother said keep your bar membership active because you never know if you have to fall back on it. I still keep it active but your membership is not active ise anymore. I kept my my certificate was acceptance from the bar in the piano bench for about 20 years. All right so you started and you worked out of your apartment and you had a million half dollars some friends and family so what was the strategy that you used to get off the ground. You save and invest in stocks. I was going to be a macro fund what was the strategy tiny bit of context. My dad was a retail pharmacist and after I started attending law school he said well you have to learn how to be an investor and he and I traded tiny amounts of tech stocks and mining stocks together. Two thousand dollars of this 5000 dollars of this . So I became very very interested in in markets and in trading and in the period of time from 1967 68 through 1974 he and I found just about every possible way conceivable to lose money . And so when I started Elliott in 1977 I was determined to engage in a trading strategy that made money all the time and so for the first 10 years or so of Elliott's existence the primary strategy was convertible bond hedging by the bond short the stock. It had a strong positive carry some trading profits. I practiced it on low leverage and it did the job. So the job meaning a consistent return making money more or less all the time. So 1977 when I was in the White House then getting inflation to 19 percent per annum so did that affect the price that that affect your arbitrage strategy that are not really . Well it's interesting because from 77 actually the those rates were a couple of years later 77 that were close to normal interest rates and normally the the path from a 5 6 percent interest rate to to 15 percent of 17 percent is a path of losing significant amounts of money when your long bonds. But the hedging worked very very well and so the the absolute level of the interest rates provided a strong positive carry you made money on the coupon on the long side you made money on interest sharing on the on the short stock. And so those years were very high stands at so-called standstill rates of return plus the opportunity for trading profits. So where did the name Eliot come from. My middle name came hey so it was hard to find that name middle name or did you think of any other Greek names or Roman names you just thought. Your middle name. That was the only name you considered or I thought was better than Paul. OK . All right. So at what point when you're doing this did you realize you know I'm a little bit better than the average person doing this because I get rates of return to more consistent when did you realize that you were probably better than the average guy getting these kind of right or doing these kind of things . I never thought of it that way. I was completely determined to just make a rate of return and really recapture my parents money that I had lost previously and fine keep keep finding ways to to to pursue that goal of absolute return at a time when convertibles were becoming more quantified more leveraged and more competitive. So if somebody had invested with you in the very beginning and he or she kept their money with you from the very beginning know if anybody did that. What kind of rate of return would they have compounded over 40 years. My mom did that. Your mother is ninety nine years old. Yeah 99 plus 99 plus she's waiting for that call next year and I assume she is proud of you I assume. Yes she is . And as she recognize that giving up the practice of law was probably a good idea. I hesitated because she's Jewish and she doesn't want to . She hasn't been that she hasn't been in great shape the last one when she was in better shape. She must have called you and said You're doing great that you didn't never never . OK. She called me and said Your reports are too long. OK. All right. Well she was reading them but so. Right. So no she was saving the saving. OK. So your answer to your other question is from the beginning a 13 and a half percent net compounded rate of return. So one dollar became like one hundred and sixty dollars hundred sixty five dollars. And there were some early investors that have stayed in basically all the time but in other words over a 40 year period of time you've compounded 13 1/2 percent net for 40 years. Right. That's pretty good it too late to invest retroactively in that yes . So in recent years as your fame has gotten bigger and bigger you've gotten more more money more and more money's come in . And you're the core of what you do. You call it a macro fund or a value fund what what what would you describe your investment technique if you were to use a couple words to describe it . Some people call what we do multi strategy. Others call it absolute return the idea of our portfolio mix is to try to make money as close as possible to all the time what we've done over the years to in pursuit of that goal as vanilla convertible hedging became uninteresting was add other ways of generating absolute return to the mix. For example we came to feel and part of it was because of my my experience as a lawyer that manual activities trading manual effort for risk was was a good way to add value war and also control risk . That's why bankruptcy distressed securities became our largest capital deployment. And that's why in recent years equity activism has become a very important capital deployment. That's an important part of what you do now is what you got equity activism so a couple that are very well known. Let me talk about one that's very famous all over the world. You bought some bonds from Argentina. You may remember this. And and I think that was was it 17 years ago or something like that a long time ago you bought the bonds and you held onto it for a long time. You pursued it in the courts and so forth the ultimate reached a settlement that was pretty favorable for your investors. Was it hard to hold on that long and and did you have threats from the Argentine government. Did you have personal security. Were you worried about them coming after you . It was it was not hard to hold on in a portfolio sense because at no time until the current government came into came into office I believe in December 2015 at no time before that did the previous two governments negotiate with us. And so there was no opportunity we weren't going to take the day take it or leave it deal that they put on the table first in 2005 and second and repeated it in 2010. It was a 30 cent deal which was the worst sovereign restructuring deal offered by a real country. This was the seventh largest economy in the world coming out of World War 2. So sometimes the stubbornness or motivations of your adversary cause you to not be able to make a deal. And as the claim mounts up so if he becomes potentially a larger recovery than any of your investors say Paul it made a little profit it's OK. Go on to something else that they ever say destroying this long period of time. ACT interestingly no they didn't. Now even when it got some press and it was there was not an easy situation. I mean it wasn't only the 14 or 15 years holding this thing but it was . It was contentious. So you didn't worry that somebody was going to maybe you know physically attack you from Argentina . You didn't worry about that. This isn't the place to talk about security arrangements. But it was a contentious situation. OK so today you do other things like that where you would take corporate bonds or government bonds and you're willing to litigate. And that is something that generally been profitable to say you know litigation. We are dealmakers we are activists . We get on committees in bankruptcy official committees. We were the sole hedge fund on the Lehman official creditors committee. We negotiate separately we enter deals we trade litigation is always a last last resort in a situation in which there's a dispute about seniority or a claim of being a lawyer that doesn't propel you to do more litigation than if you weren't a lawyer. No it's just a tool. It's it's part of the equation. One of the one of the risk limiting and value creation strategies is on correlation and correlation is a is a wonderful element to add to an absolute return seeking portfolio because if you're doing something that that has a pattern of risk and return even if it's volatile even if it's binary. Make a lot lose a lot. But a pattern of returns that doesn't have anything to do with the course of the stock or bond markets or anything else in your portfolio. That's that's a that's an elegant part of the mix. So do you ever. Say do research in a company and then let's say a company and then you call up or somebody calls up the CEO and say this isn't what you can improve your company do this and that and they say that's a good idea I wish I thought of that. That ever happened but I like your ideas right away or that doesn't happen much. It's interesting the way you're asking the question. It's it's. It presupposes that the response of the company is always either anger or hiding under their desks or some combination and that's wrong . You would say sometimes they like the idea. No sometimes you're actually knocking on an open door. Our style is my style and our style as a team is doing the doing the work as thoroughly as we can to develop a thesis to assess whether we think there really is a an action or a series of actions that could be taken to to eliminate underperformance or ameliorate a situation then contacting a company privately testing with consultants or bankers testing our ideas then contacting a company privately and trying to generate a dialogue. And sometimes you find that you're knocking on an open door sometimes there's a there's a founder or a management team that's that's ready to sell out or happy to want to go on to something else but they just they don't want to feel that they're deserting. There they are staff their employees. So there's a lot of different reasons why a company that's ready for some kind of reformation or new blood likes to see a resolution that can maximize value. So how many investment professionals do you now have in your in your firm. It's about one hundred and twenty. And do you sign off on every single investment or the major ones that you're still the chair of the investment committee or how does the decisions make go forward . I have a coast CEO and a Coast CIO chief investment officer and my he is his name is John Pollock and he's been with me since 1989. And in that period of time we more than just complete each other's sentences. So there are two people running the firm at this point and it's a very interesting thing to me is as a money manager and as a young as an executive of a firm like this the founding impulse of of the hedge fund idea is independence of thinking it's it's the opposite of committee investing by committee. And the earliest hedge fund folks of course were by themselves. They were sort of privateers on the world's investment oceans and I never thought that the craft would be susceptible to an organizational approach team approach. And I actually never really thought that I would be able to be a good manager and a good team leader. But the way it works the way it actually works is a layered process by which we attempt to train people to accept responsibility to deliver trustworthy insights inputs to have done the work or to have commissioned the work. And so decision making at Elliot is a matter of devolving responsibility down as low as we can within the organization within agreed boundaries strategies tactics. But John or I generally approve every every meaningful position and certainly every time we have deep discussions about every large position of Europe I think a mild mannered soft spoken person as I'm talking to you don't look like a guy who's yelling and screaming and pounding the table at people. So you have an image though of being a person it strikes fear in a lot of CEOs. You must recognize that some people are probably afraid that they're gonna get a call from Paul Singer. So do you. Does an image bother you that you have an image of being a tough person and commanding that people do certain things when you're actually fairly mild mannered and seem like you're relatively low key . I think it's an interesting question because what I've learned over the years is to not care too much about opprobrium and an unfair press. There's a there's a part of this equation that's that's functional. In other words if that's the reputation we have backed by having the money and the process and you know generally sound thinking about the positions it's it's good when a corporate executive opens the mail or the e mail or picks up the phone and listens with the understanding that we are real that we have the capacity to to carry through and the history of carrying through on our projects that we undertake and that we need to be convinced in order to in order to say OK sorry. Which sometimes we do . Sorry we were wrong or doing a great job. So it doesn't bother me anymore. Now in the political world you become well-known in the Republican Party outside of your firm where you're always a Republican I was a Deven Soni and Democrat in 1950 worked to win sixty six and a Kennedy liberal. But starting with Goldwater I became a conservative and have been a conservative political conservative. And so you were fairly involved in supporting various Republican causes and candidates and so forth. Last presidential election. Who was your favorite candidate . I supported I stood aside for most of 2015 and then supported Marco Rubio. And when he dropped out did you have anybody next . No. I stood aside. OK. But ultimately when Donald Trump was the nominee the party. Did you support him then as a nominee I voted for him . And there's a I was not going to vote for Hillary Clinton as some of my Republican friends did and I became optimistic about some of the opportunities in economic growth and regulatory reform tax reform. Donald Trump invited you down to visit him. Did you know him before he was elected president. I did not. I invested in his bonds. A couple of times. OK. Those were high grade bonds. They were on the date of issue they later became high yield and below. So they have you seen him since he is president and you give me any advice . I visited the White House once a few months ago and we chatted a bit about taxes and economic policy. So how do you see the economy right now. You you're making investments across the board. You think the economy is in reasonable shape. Are you worried about the economy you see a recession coming. I want to preface my answer by saying that I have strong views about certain aspects of some of the macro environment but I don't let these views infect my desire to be hedged all the time and try not to run. We never make massive timing bets on the timing of bear markets or downturns. I think I'm very concerned about where we are in terms of the financial system the economy the American economy global economy after nine years of what I consider to be distorted distorted set of policies completely oriented towards what I regard as monetary extremism . The the quantitative easing which has put about 15 trillion dollars of bonds and now stocks on the books of the developed countries central banks 0 percent and negative interest rates . So emergency monetary policy persisting for eight years after the after the emergency is over . Combined with what I consider to be growth suppressive policies fiscal policies regulatory tax and so I think it's created a distorted recovery that's been partially responsible for this. This augmentation exacerbation of inequality that's caused the combination of that and the incomplete recovery has caused this middle class stress and edginess around the world which has led to some political you know fringe parties and fringe thoughts populism . And so after nine years of this artificial levitation on the part of financial assets high end real estate art the things that rich people buy I think I think what we have today is a global financial system that's just about as leveraged. And in many cases more leveraged than before 2008 . And so and I don't think the financial system is more sound and I don't think that the fixes that have been put into place have actually created a sound financial system. So I don't believe that confidence is justified in policymakers and in central bankers. And the fact that confidence has not been lost up to now is is is obvious. But if and when confidence is lost I think it could be lost in a very abrupt fashion causing conceivably a ruckus in the bond market stock markets and in the financial incentive to be given a lot of money raised a lot of money for Republicans. You think you've gotten value for your money. You have you can you meet anybody. Do they listen to you. How much influence do you get for all that money that you've given to these people. I don't I don't think of it in terms of value for your money. It's a it's a very interesting thing with with politics and not that many of my peers have the the staying power or stubbornness or stupidity to persist as as as long in the political arena of don't or activist fund or fund raiser as I and many people find and feel that the the reliability and and effectiveness that they expect and find in their businesses is not what they find in politics. And so the answer to your question is I do have and do speak to policymakers try to convey ideas about the things that I know best about regulatory reform the the financial regulation the economy the soundness of the financial system know they don't sometimes say sometimes they say well thank you for your ideas but I'm having a fundraiser in a week or they don't do that that's not the way it goes. But what they. Their problem. I mean you know let's be humanists here. Their problem is is that they are subject to all kinds of forces all kinds of pressures coming from 360 degrees on their campuses. And so the right policies and the best ideas are not necessarily and many of them listen and many of them are smart. They're not necessarily things that make the final cut but I think it's important for citizens to want informed citizens to to try to give assistance. We're among them among Republican activists who actually can in a relatively uncomplicated level. We're not. We have less parochial interests in the things that we talk to policy makers about than than most. If Donald Trump called you up and said Look I watched this interview and you're a smart guy you care about our country. Why don't you come in and be secretary of something when a vacancy opens would you go into government a senior position. I would say thank you very much Mr. President. But I'm doing what I love doing and I'd be happy to. Well to render whatever help I can as a private citizen. OK so as a private citizen you've done very well. The hedge fund has done extremely well. You've managed to say thirty four billion dollars now. So as a result of that you have made a fair amount of money and you have been very involved in philanthropy. One of the areas you've been involved with is human rights. And what propelled you to get involved in human rights and that's a marriage equality issues what direct. First of all I. I apply to philanthropy the same spirit of activism trying to get involved trying to make a difference make an impact create things not just write out a check. It's a similar impulse impulses as the impulses that govern my investing style. In that in the case of gay rights my younger son came out to me as gay in 1998 when he was 21 years old and shortly after some brief discussions I became very interested in in being a funder of gay rights groups of helping out in that in that realm . At the beginning of just writing out checks at the beginning pursuant to agreement with my son anonymously but over a period of time it became overt and over a period of time I and my team became quite friendly with him with his legacy. Gay rights groups including Democrats hardcore Democrats and we started working together on different projects. The combination of that was. It was really a very very highly strategic and well executed project was a partnership with the governor of New York with us and our run our Democratic friends to one to make gay rights gay marriage legal in New York which required Republican state senators help. And we were involved in that . So I assume when you got involved that issue many of your conservative Republican friends said Paul you know we're conservative Republicans we're not in favor of marriage equality . Did that occur. You just said I don't care what you think . At the at the beginning of my overt support of of gay rights including the New York marriage equality I took as much stick from the left as the right. I took sticks from both but much less than I expected. The stick I took from the left was gee look at this guy. He's his son is gay and but he supported x y z. He's against gay rights or I was supporting many Republicans who were not in favor of gay rights from the right . What I actually found is a number of Republicans. I mean I live in New York so I would find such people a number of Republicans who were hardcore Republicans on fiscal issues and rule of law and all kinds of other issues but very interested in in the social issues being having a more liberal or left wing slant. So I found that a much more energizing and something that Bill built bridges with other Republicans and frankly the Republicans who didn't like it most of them realized that if you have some some really loyal steady Republican activists and donors who are supporting something that they don't support. There's still 80 percent your friend and 20 percent supporting things that you don't you don't support. Just to say one more thing about it. I think most Republicans even the ones that don't support gay rights or gay marriage equality have a good sense of where things are going demographically and and the opportunity for the Republican Party there. So I didn't get really too much stale. You are one of the early signers of the giving pledge with Bill Gates and Warren Buffett and Melinda Gates and so that pledge says you're going to give away during your lifetime or upon your death half your money. That's a lot of money for you to give away. So what are the other things you're most passionate about giving your money to Well I signed up for the giving pledge once I realized that that's what I was going to do anyway. And I'm very interested in supporting Jewish causes particularly Israel and the the the economic the economic stability and growth of Israel the acceptance of Israel the normalization of Israel's relationships with other countries. I'm also interested in the rule of law and then I'm interested in campuses free speech on campus due process on campus. So there are a number of of of causes that devolve over over periods of time. That that I both because I've developed a team I both donate. Figure out who the best outlets for making impact but also in certain cases I've created and my team has created certain things that that didn't exist to fill in gaps. So if when you're not investing your money or your investors money and you're not giving away your money you must have some time for relaxation. So what actually gives you pleasure outside of those other activities do you a skier you're a hiker. What what is your activity if anything on the outside that you do for relaxation and pleasure . I'm a musician. I play piano and keyboards do play and at concerts or you do it at home or do you have a band or. I've been in a number of bands amateur bands of course. And I play with musicians now. And it's just because you took lessons when you were young and you didn't quite get the level you wanted and you get pleasure now doing it did you learn this late in life . I started taking piano lessons when I was 10 years old and started becoming interested in playing rock and blues and honky tonk piano when I was eleven years old. So it's it's been I've been in reggae bands blues bands rock bands and the only white guy in the reggae bands are pretty much sadly the reggae band I was in was all white or Jewish to me . You know I'm because my legs of fake news reggae band because my last name is Rubinstein. My mother thought that I have the skills of Arthur Rubinstein. So she sent me piano lessons when I was roughly the same age and the piano teacher said. Mr. Mr Rubinstein save your money. He has no skills so I didn't actually get the skills that you have probably. Well I've had a lot of fun because my most of my family are musicians and so we have a family band also. And so we have a guitar player a saxophone player drummer . OK so now you've got a very I also ski snowmobile hike. I like the outdoor sail. I like the outdoors. Wow you're pretty active. So you use those things to keep in shape so you're an exercise fitness person as well sort of. So today if you look back on your what you've accomplished I suppose the New York Times were to ask somebody to write an obituary for Paul Singer and let's suppose they ask you to write their obituary. What would you like to see as well as the headline of what you've accomplished in your life. Could it be the Wall Street Journal The Wall Street Journal. OK OK. I'd say it's the Wall Street Journal. What would they . It'll help me. What would you like them to say this is what this man accomplished in his life . He tried to make a difference. He protected a lot of people's capital over a long period of time. He was steady reliable Well it's pretty good. So a lot of people who are very wealthy I've noticed they're not really happy. You seem like a pretty happy person would you say you're happy with what you've accomplished . Not tortured a lot of people when they were tortured. This is a form of therapy David which I appreciate. Do you mind if I lie down now . You've actually done an incredible job building a business that I admire what you built and what you've done in philanthropy . It's really quite remarkable. So I want to thank you for a great conversation and I thank everybody here for listening . Thank you .