The elusive Michael Larson, recruited by
West Point (who you know and who you blow for this recommend)
The Coast Guard Academy
The Merchant Marine Academy
This guy had juice since the day he was born.
"Michael Larson, manager of Gates’ $170 billion who was supposed to keep them out of the news
Bill and Melinda Gates' divorce announcement cracked the curated image. Unflattering details spilled out, including a report that Larson allegedly harassed & bullied some employees."
June 22, 2021
"New York: For almost three decades, Michael Larson has quietly shuffled around one of the world’s biggest fortunes with a chief priority: Keep his fabulously wealthy bosses out of the headlines.
The conservative bets, the nondescript office, the investment firm’s generic-sounding name; they were all carefully designed to shield Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates from criticism and produce steady, if seemingly unimpressive, returns.
The couple’s divorce announcement last month cracked the curated image. Unflattering details spilled out, including a report that Larson had allegedly harassed and bullied some employees.
On Monday, a spokesman said that Bill and Melinda Gates Investments — the 100-person strong team led by Larson that’s overseen their personal fortune and the endowment of their namesake foundation — changed its name to Cascade Asset Management Co. The moniker closely resembles Cascade Investment, which historically has been the part of BMGI that manages the Gateses’ personal wealth.
The rebranding is the latest step in the unfolding story of what will happen to one of the world’s largest fortunes when Gates and French Gates finalize their divorce. Larson was hired by the Microsoft Corp. billionaire in the mid-1990s to oversee that wealth.
The sprawling portfolio under his purview, estimated by Bloomberg News to be valued at about $170 billion, has over the years generated returns that beat the broader stock market by about a percentage point, according to financial filings and people familiar with the matter.
The record illustrates the priorities of the uppermost strata of the ultrarich, where investment horizons span generations and riskier bets often don’t outweigh the value of a good reputation. Part of Larson’s job was to help Bill Gates uphold his image as a wonky billionaire devoted to fixing the world’s challenges, rather than make bold moves that could draw scrutiny.
“The price some of these guys are willing to pay to stay out of the news is high,” said Tayyab Mohamed, co-founder of family office recruiting firm Agreus Group.
The divorce and recent revelations about Cascade’s workplace culture, reported by the New York Times, raise questions about what’s next for Larson and the fortune he oversees. A spokesman for Cascade said BMGI is changing its name “to allow for the evolving needs of the Gates family and their philanthropic work” and that the group’s investment strategy and organizational structure won’t change.
French Gates, whose name was added to BMGI in 2014, has been in focus after Cascade transferred equity stakes worth more than $3 billion to her, leading some in the industry to speculate she’s in the process of claiming an even larger control of her share of the riches. Their combined wealth stands at more than $140 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index."
https://theprint.in/world/michael-larson-manager-of-gates-170-billion-who-was-supposed-to-keep-them-out-of-the-news/682105/