Even in charity, the titans of hedge funds and private equity do nothing small.
At the 2007 Robin Hood benefit this week, two people paid $400,000 each to sing a song with Aerosmith. A package that includes dinner for 10 with Mario Batali fetched $1.3 million. An all-expenses-paid trip to the Olympics in China that includes hanging out with the “Today” host Matt Lauer and meeting a member of the United States women’s soccer team went for $2.2 million.
The event raised $71 million, up 32 percent from a year ago, in what was a display of gilded age excess. Part two of the adventure includes three nights at the Four Seasons in London, a visit with the designer Stella McCartney and tea with the actress Gwyneth Paltrow and her husband, Chris Martin of Coldplay, who will also give a piano lesson.
The markets have been kind, and the tycoons of modern finance were harnessing their competitive spirit toward giving money rather than getting it.
“It was overwhelming,” said Glenn Dubin, co-founder of Highbridge Capital and a founding board member of Robin Hood. “There was a feeling of social responsibility and philanthropy in the room that was palpable.” In an era where 25 money managers can accumulate $14 billion in one year and private jets fail to inspire awe, Wednesday night’s results aptly conjured up a bit of amazement.
Superlatives peppered the descriptions of the evening’s events, from the wealth represented in the room, the contents of the packages being auctioned or the wealth being donated.
Even Jamie Niven, the auctioneer who is a vice chairman at Sotheby’s and who has been doing charity auctions for 15 years, had a moment. “The amount of money raised is so disproportionate to any other auction that I do,” he said. “Usually, if you raise $1 million you’ve done very well.”
Compare this week’s event with spring of 2000, when Silicon Valley was awash in dot-com money. Ron Conway, a Silicon Valley investor held a charity auction emceed by Dana Carvey, attended by boatloads of billionaires and noted for the astounding amount of money raised. Golf with Tiger Woods went for $650,000, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s three-ton Hummer fetched $140,000 and someone paid $25,000 to have lunch with Marc Andreesen, a co-founder of Netscape. All told, the billionaires brought in $1.2 million, an amount that could only be characterized as quaint today.
Fast forward to 2007. Graham Nash, an emblem of the free-spirit days of the 1960s as a member of Crosby Stills Nash & Young, is playing acoustic guitar and singing “Teach Your Children” to the audience of 4,000.
Mr. Nash is prepping the audience to open their checkbooks to finance a teacher training institute. The teachers serve 1.1 million students in New York City, nearly two-thirds of whom live in poverty.
With the mood set, Paul Tudor Jones II, Robin Hood’s founder and a hedge fund veteran, thanks Larry Robbins, a fellow hedge fund manager and his, wife Amy, for their pledge of $10 million. (What better way to get started that to induce a bit of competition among this particular hyperkinetic group?)
Now he’s looking for more contributions, and bids are set at $1 million a pop.
Twenty-two glow sticks, serving as auction paddles, go up, neon flashes throughout the room. Twenty-two million dollars. Mr. Jones and Mr. Niven lower the bid to a quarter of a million dollars. Twenty-two more glow sticks. At the end of the bidding they have $30 million for the institute and $7.5 million for an educational fund.
Mr. Nash was not the only celebrity to inspire some giving. Tom Brady, quarterback for the New England Patriots, took the stage to get the bidding going on a package called Need for Speed, in which the winner would attend the Indianapolis 500, fly in a two-seat L-39 trainer with a Navy F-14 fighter pilot and train with Mr. Brady, among other things.
Tom Brokaw started the evening and the comedian Jon Stewart was the host, roasting hedge fund managers for not giving as much as their private equity counterparts.
The domestic doyenne Martha Stewart rubbed shoulders with the actor Michael Douglas; Stephen A. Schwarzman of the Blackstone Group donned his felt Robin Hood hat; and Steven Tyler of Aerosmith rocked out with the millionaires and billionaires for more than two hours.
Even the door prize — a trip to Jamaica — involved a celebrity lineup. Jane Krakowski, the actress from “30 Rock,” was to draw the winner’s name. The winner was Jimmy Fallon, the “Saturday Night Live” alum. But he could not accept. So he drew another name — Zach Braff from “Scrubs,” who also passed and picked another name. It turned out to be Ben Affleck, who assured the audience that he was in fact the end of the joke. A winner was called.
The annual Robin Hood benefit has come a long way from its first event at the Manhattan Club in 1990, when it raised $700,000. Started by Mr. Jones, it has become the “it” charity of the hedge fund set and the charity event of the year.
His timing could not have been better. In the past decade, the number of hedge funds has soared, alongside the salaries of those running them and for some, a desire to give generously.
“This is one of the single finest marketing machines for such an extraordinary cause I have ever witnessed,” said one participant. “You could poll 10 C.E.O.’s on have you ever seen a product better marketed and sold than the Robin Hood brand. It truly is genius.” It has invested more than $900 million in cash and in donated services since its inception in 1988.
The auction has unusual packages.
“They put these things together that in your lifetime you couldn’t do. It’s the secret for that audience,” said Mr. Niven of Sotheby’s. “You can’t give them a week in Rome. They can do that.”
But they could bid on a trip for six to London to stay at Waddesdon Manor, built in the 19th century by Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild to house his art, and where the winner can use the wine cellar and golf and riflery.
Source: http://www.nytimes.com
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