The career rise of billionaire Steve Cohen, the hedge fund legend who owns the Mets

Cohen was one of eight children born to a piano teacher and a garment manufacturer. In high school, the billionaire worked at a supermarket, Bloomberg reported.

He studied economics at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. Outside of class, he traded stocks and beat his friends at poker. He was in a fraternity, too. He joined the Zeta Beta Tau fraternity.

Cohen loved stocks so much that he would trade them in between his classes, according to a 2003 Bloomberg Businessweek profile. In his spare time, he would also beat all of his friends at poker.

After graduating in 1978, he went to Wall Street to work for at boutique investment banking and brokerage firm Gruntal & Co. as a junior trader in the options arbitrage group.

His beginnings on Wall Street inspired a legend that he made $8,000 his first day and was bringing in around $100,000 each day. He became a star at Gruntal and by 1984, he started running his own group of traders.

He launched his own hedge fund in 1992. Cohen rented office space nine floors above Gruntal to start his own $25 million hedge fund, SAC Capital.

Some of his traders from Gruntal joined him there until SAC was headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut.

When he was 23, Cohen married Patricia Finke. They had two children together and got divorced in 1988.

In 2009, Finke sued Cohen, alleging that he hid millions from her and some of that money had come from insider trading in RCA shares back in 1985 before it was acquired by General Electric, DealBook reported. A spokesperson at the time called the allegations "ludicrous" and "without merit." The case was ultimately dismissed in 2011.

He met his current wife, Alexandra Garcia, through a dating service in 1991. Alexandra was a single mom of Puerto Rican descent who grew up in Washington Heights.

They married in 1992 and have four children together.

In 1998 and 1999, SAC delivered 70% annual returns. Then, in 2000, his hedge fund bet against tech stocks and brought in 70% returns again.

Back in 2006, WSJ reported that SAC's trading accounted for 2% of all of the stock market activity. This would make them a desired client on the Street.

Cohen wasn't charged with any wrongdoing in an insider trading case against former CR Intrinsic (a subsidiary of SAC) portfolio manager Mathew Martoma. However, SAC Capital pleaded guilty to securities fraud and agreed to pay a $1.8 billion fine in 2013.

Cohen agreed to turn SAC Capital into a family office in 2013.

In 2014, the firm rebranded with a new name: Point72 Asset Management. During this time, it managed the assets of Cohen, his family, and eligible employees.

In 2016, Cohen reached a settlement with the SEC over charges that he failed to supervise one of his portfolio managers. Cohen did not admit or deny the charge. As part of the settlement, he agreed to not manage outside capital for two years.

The move was seen as his official comeback in money management after SAC's legal troubles. He formed Stamford Harbor Capital to invest in private funds. As Cohen sent out pitches for his new fund, anticipation for its launch grew.

Two years later, Stamford Harbor Capital merged with Point72 to begin accepting outside capital, raising $5.7 billion over the course of 2018, the company said on its site.

Cohen played poker in high school.

"It's the same with trading. I think about the risk. I think about the trade. I don't think about the money. Poker—that was the biggest determinant in my learning to take risks," he told Vanity Fair in 2010.

However, a spokesperson told BI that he no longer plays the card game.

Today, he's known for his prominent art collection, which he's been adding to since 2000.

His impressive collection, which was said to be worth around $1 billion at one point, includes pieces by Monet, Picasso, Jasper Johns, Jeff Koons, Damien Hirst, Willem de Kooning, Francis Bacon, and Andy Warhol, according to a 2010 Vanity Fair profile.

In 2022, Cohen's philanthropic foundation, The Steven & Alexandra Cohen Foundation, celebrated donating more than $1 billion since its formation in 2001.

Cohen grew up watching Mets games.

In February 2012, he reportedly bought a 4% stake in the MLB team for $20 million.

He purchased 87% of the Mets for $2.4 billion in 2020. He's one of the richest owners in the league, and he's known to engage with fans online.

It seemed to be a good year for Cohen. Point72 surpassed $20 billion in assets, and the public perception of Cohen began to change. He was once known as a hedge fund shark, but he gained a following of Mets fans on X, then Twitter, after becoming the team owner.

In the period leading up to opening day of the MLB 2023 season, Cohen committed over $806 million in contracts to nine players. The Mets' project player payroll for that year was $377 million, Forbes reported.

On the finance side, Point72 surpassed $30 billion in assets in July 2023.

Cohen stepped away from trading his book for Point72 in favor of mentoring emerging investors.

"Point72 continues to be Steve's primary focus and he's as engaged as ever. The only change here is that he will spend less time in front of his computer screens and more time working with investment teams and developing talent at the firm," a previous statement from a firm spokesperson said.

The firm had previously established the Point72 Academy in 2015, which trains undergraduates to be investment analysts, and LaunchPoint, the hedge fund's incubator for top analysts ramping up to run money.

Point72 launched Turion, a fund dedicated to artificial intelligence, in October 2024. It's run by portfolio manager Eric Sanchez, and it posted a 14% gain within months of starting out with expectations of growing to $1.5 billion.

Julia La Roche contributed to an earlier version of this story.