Last week both Carl Icahn and Warren Buffett announced their picks for the upcoming presidential sweepstakes. Icahn let his selection be known through an
unexpected rant against Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., during an investor conference, and Buffett offered a seemingly offhand comment -- although is anything really offhand with Buffett? -- praising Obama to a journalist. But where does the rest of Wall Street stand?
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Most dealmakers, of course, won't formally comment to the media who they prefer -- or no one will ask. But we don't need the media because the Federal Election Commission makes the info readily available on its Web site. Dealscape recently spent some of our valuable time sifting through the FEC database. What we learned may surprise folks out there, including Huffington Post's Max Keiser who assumed in a piece about Icahn's anti-Obama rant that all of Wall Street agreed with the outspoken financier.
Starting with the largest Wall Street firms
In fact, the FEC giving trend clearly favored Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y. (Jamie Dimon, Lloyd Blankfein, John Mack), who received money from three CEOs, whereas John McCain, R-Ariz., received money from one (John Thain), and Obama had to share Lehman Brothers Inc.'s Richard Fuld's largess with both rivals. The interesting one here is Mack's support for Clinton. Mack had been a strong George W. Bush supporter. Another interesting detail: Citigroup Inc.'s Vikram Pandit is not in the FEC database, meaning he likely didn't contribute to any of the campaigns. Maybe he was too busy saving Citi -- but if it matters, former Citi CEO Chuck Prince backed former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. Figures.
| Wall Street chiefs |
| Banker |
Firm |
Candidate |
| John Thain |
Merrill Lynch & Co.
|
John McCain |
| Jamie Dimon |
J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.
|
Hillary Clinton |
| Lloyd Blankfein |
Goldman, Sachs & Co.
|
Hillary Clinton |
| John Mack |
Morgan Stanley |
Hillary Clinton |
| Vikram Pandit |
Citigroup Inc.
|
NA |
| Richard Fuld |
Lehman Brothers Inc.
|
Barack Obama
Hillary Clinton
John McCain |
|
Source: Federal Election Commission |
Activists prefer Dems
While Icahn considers himself an activist investor, he really doesn't fit politically with his peers -- no big surprise -- who overwhelmingly invested with the Democrats. Only one leading activist, Philip Falcone of Harbinger Capital Partners, put his money behind a Republican in the form of Rudy Giuliani, who later refunded the donation.
Why are activists overwhelmingly Democrats despite the party's push to change rules concerning carried interest and regulate hedge funds? Well, Republicans are often associated with managerial and corporate interests. Activists are a little like class-action attorneys: They view themselves as tilting against an establishment. And in the great governance wars, Democrats tend to favor shareholders.
Moving on, the two nods to Sen. Chris Dodd, D.-Conn., can be explained away by the fact that he represents Connecticut, which has a high concentration of hedge funds. However with that logic in mind, one would also expect strong support for Clinton because of the large number of firms also calling New York City home, though none supported her candidacy. On the other hand, this may explain the support of CEOs of the three big Wall Street firms for Clinton.
Given the sheer number of candidates, most of the activists ended up backing losers. The exceptions: Pershing Square Capital Partners' William Ackman and Third Point's Dan Loeb, who both picked Obama to win even before Iowa. - Matthew Wurtzel
| Leading Activist Investors |
| Dealmaker |
Firm |
Candidate |
| Warren Lichtenstein |
Steel Partners |
Bill Richardson |
| Nelson Peltz |
Triarc Cos. |
NA |
| Dan Loeb |
Third Point |
Barack Obama |
| William Ackman |
Pershing Square Capital Partners |
Barack Obama |
| Jim Mitaratonda |
Barington Capital |
NA |
| Philip Falcone |
Harbinger Capital Partners |
Rudolph Giuliani
(refunded) |
| Steven Cohen |
SAC Capital |
Chris Dodd |
| Ralph Whitworth |
Relational Investors |
NA |
| Barry Rosenstein |
Jana Partners |
Chris Dodd |
| Thomas Sandell |
Sandell Asset Management |
NA |
|
Source: Federal Election Commission |
Comments
If a bunch of liberal legislators were talking about giving me $300 Billion to fix what I screwed up, I wudz sho be suppouting dem.