In this piece, we will take a look at billionaire Leon Cooperman’s family, children and investments. If you want to skip our detailed overview of one of the most successful billionaires in Wall Street history, then you can skip ahead to Billionaire Leon Cooperman’s Family, Children, and Investments: Top 5 Stocks.
When it comes to shrewd takes on the stock market, you’re unlikely to find too many that lag behind Leon Cooperman’s analysis of the stock market and the broader financial environment in the United States. Over the course of his career, the billionaire has seen it all. An octogenarian, Cooperman started his career in 1967 – an era on Wall Street that was yet to be dominated by mega cap technology stocks. Back then, Wall Street investors were facing their own historic environment. While right now folks in the hedge fund and the broader finance industry are adjusting to an era of high interest rates and the ‘end of free money‘ as Mr. Cooperman would put it, in the late 1960s, they were rejoicing on the Federal Reserve’s decision to allow a portion of stock purchases to be funded by taking out loans.
Naturally, this meant that more stocks changed hands and the euphoria would continue for the next couple of years until rising costs and dwindling interest led to the government stepping in and helping brokers manage the market. In this turmoil, Cooperman was working for the famed investment bank The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (NYSE:GS) and he would continue to work for the bank until 1991, a period that would see him live through one of the most well known and devastating stock market crashes called Black Monday. A couple of years after Black Monday, Cooperman would leverage the skills he learned while managing stocks for one of the biggest investment banks in the world to try his own hand at wealth and fame by setting up a private investment partnership.
While working at Goldman saw the famed investor make his mark on Wall Street by winning laurels, on the personal side, he had already achieved milestones. Characteristic of folks from his generation, even before Cooperman started working for Goldman to set him on a path to becoming one of the richest people in the world, he had already married his wife Toby Cooperman in 1964. Like Cooperman, Mrs. Cooperman also attended New York’s Hunter College and graduated in the year of their marriage. During their time in college, the pair were quite close and would take up class positions such as president and vice president.
The start of Cooperman senior’s journey at Goldman Sachs was accompanied by his six month old toddler, and today, he has two sons, Wayne Cooperman and Michael Cooperman. Both of these have followed their father into the finance industry, and Wayne Cooperman even has his own hedge fund called Cobalt Capital Management. Michael Cooperman, on the other hand, is more involved in his family’s charitable endeavors and has been known to work at the Leon & Toby Cooperman Foundation. Cooperman Sr. is quite charitable too, and like several other well known hedge fund and investment professionals such as Warren Buffett of Berkshire Hathaway and Mario Gabelli of GAMCO, he has also signed the giving pledge.
Wayne’s trysts in the finance industry have also generated their fair share of controversy. One infamous period in Cooperman Sr.’s long and illustrious career on Wall Street was in 2010 when he had yet to shut down his investment firm. Back then, the billionaire’s investment firm had held a stake in the oil and gas midstream company Atlas Pipeline Partners, L.P. Atlas announced a $682 million sale of an asset to the Canadian firm Enbridge, and Cooperman Sr. was accused of improperly profiting from the deal by buying more Atlas Pipeline shares with the inside knowledge that the deal would be announced soon. To make things interesting, the accusations tipped off the SEC to investigate Cooperman, who started to look into the matter purportedly after Wayne Cooperman noticed unusual derivative activity for Atlas shares right when the deal was to be announced.
In a rather interesting set of events, it appeared as if Cooperman Sr. had raised his son to detest insider trading while all the while trading stocks with inside knowledge himself! The saga lasted for six years, and despite the SEC offering him to settle in return for a five year ban, the investor stood his ground and settled for a fine without admitting to any wrongdoing.
Since then, Cooperman shut down his firm in 2018 after he grew tired of the fast paced and stressful nature of professionally investing in stocks. He now invests through his family office Omega Advisors, and according to Insider Monkey’s research, Mr. Cooperman’s family office had a portfolio value of $2 billion by the end of last year’s fourth quarter.
So, which stocks is the legendary investor who was voted the number one portfolio strategist by Institutional Investors for nine consecutive years investing in? We took a look at Leon Cooperman’s investment portfolio today, and some names that stick out are Energy Transfer LP (NYSE:ET), Mr. Cooper Group Inc. (NASDAQ:COOP), and Apollo Global Management, Inc. (NYSE:APO). We also recently took a look at his favorite dividend stocks as part of our coverage of 50 Percent of Billionaire Cooperman’s Portfolio is Invested in These 12 Dividend Stocks.
Our Methodology
To make our list of Leon Cooperman’s investments and his top stock picks, we ranked Omega Advisors Q4 2023 investment portfolio by the value of Mr. Cooperman’s stake and picked out the top stocks.
For these Leoon Cooperman top stocks, we used hedge fund sentiment. Hedge funds’ top 10 consensus stock picks outperformed the S&P 500 Index by more than 140 percentage points over the last 10 years (see the details here). That’s why we pay very close attention to this often-ignored indicator.
Billionaire Leon Cooperman’s Family, Children, and Investments
10. Regal Rexnord Corporation (NYSE:RRX)
Omega Advisors’ Latest Investment Stake: $88.8 million
Regal Rexnord Corporation (NYSE:RRX) is a sizeable American industrial products firm that serves the needs of the oil and gas, aerospace, data center, and other industries. The shares are rated Strong Buy on average, and the average analyst share price target is $195.63.
As of Q4 2023 end, 33 out of the 933 hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were the firm’s shareholders. Ric Dillon’s Diamond Hill Capital owned the largest Regal Rexnord Corporation (NYSE:RRX) stake which was worth $451 million.
Regal Rexnord Corporation (NYSE:RRX) joins Mr. Cooper Group Inc. (NASDAQ:COOP), Energy Transfer LP (NYSE:ET), and Apollo Global Management, Inc. (NYSE:APO) in our list of Leon Cooperman’s top investments.
9. Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG)
Omega Advisors’ Latest Investment Stake: $90.7 million
Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) is a global technology giant known for its search engine, video streaming, cloud computing, and other technology platforms. Taking advantage of its heft and announced an upgraded artificial intelligence chip that can compete with NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA)’s hefty products.
During last year’s fourth quarter, 166 out of the 933 hedge funds part of Insider Monkey’s database had bought and owned Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG)’s shares. Ken Fisher’s Fisher Asset Management was the firm’s biggest investor due to its $6.3 billion stake.
8. Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT)
Omega Advisors’ Latest Investment Stake: $92.3 million
Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) is another mega technology firm that is currently making the biggest headlines for artificial intelligence owing to its partnership with OpenAI. It is keeping the pedal to the metal when it comes to A.I. in April 2024, after having announced a whopping $2.9 billion A.I. investment in Japan and a new technology hub in the heart of the U.K., London.
As Q4 2023 ended, 302 out of the 933 hedge funds profiled by Insider Monkey were the firm’s shareholders. Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT)’s largest hedge fund shareholder is Michael Larson’s Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust through its $14.3 billion stake.
7. Devon Energy Corporation (NYSE:DVN)
Omega Advisors’ Latest Investment Stake: $99.6 million
Devon Energy Corporation (NYSE:DVN) is a mid sized American oil and gas exploration and production firm headquartered in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. It has operations in Delaware, Oklahoma, and Wyoming. The firm scored multiple wins in March and April 2024 when Citi upgraded the share price target to $55 from $52 and Wells Fargo upgraded the rating to Overweight from Equal Weight.
Insider Monkey dug through 933 hedge fund portfolios for last year’s fourth quarter and found that 50 had held a stake in Devon Energy Corporation (NYSE:DVN). D. E. Shaw’s D E Shaw was the biggest investor through its $230 million stake.
6. Vertiv Holdings Co (NYSE:VRT)
Omega Advisors’ Latest Investment Stake: $112.8 million
Vertiv Holdings Co (NYSE:VRT) is an American industrial products company headquartered in Westerville, Ohio. It makes and sells power management and monitoring products for the data center industry, making it a crucial stock to watch in the current AI wave. To wit, the shares are rated Strong Buy on average, and the average analyst share price target is $82.16 – slightly lower than the current price which marks an 84.38% year to date gain.
By the end of 2023’s December quarter, 75 out of the 933 hedge funds profiled by Insider Monkey had bought the firm’s shares. Philippe Laffont’s Coatue Management owned the largest Vertiv Holdings Co (NYSE:VRT) stake which was worth $663 million.
Energy Transfer LP (NYSE:ET), Vertiv Holdings Co (NYSE:VRT), Mr. Cooper Group Inc. (NASDAQ:COOP), and Apollo Global Management, Inc. (NYSE:APO)’s top stock picks.
Click to continue reading and see Billionaire Leon Cooperman’s Family, Children, and Investments: Top 5 Stocks.
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Disclosure. None. Billionaire Leon Cooperman’s Family, Children, and Investments was initially published on Insider Monkey.