Newest Board Member of Colford Capital

Dan Zwirn has been named a Board Member of Colford Capital Holdings LLC. Colford's CEO is David Lee, the former President of D.B. Zwirn & Co. Colford is majority-owned owned by Monitor Clipper Partners with an equity investment from Zwirn’s ALDA Capital. Click here to read the full Colford Capital article.

Dan Zwirn Supports President Obama

With the 2012 presidential race heating up, financial support is key for President Barack Obama in his quest to remain in the White House. With a struggling economy, the competition for donors is fierce.

Dan Zwirn Supports Obama | Obama Greets Supporters at a Campaign Event

Contributing to President Obama’s effort is Dan Zwirn, the current Managing Member of Zwirn Family Interests LLC. Zwirn recently donated to the Obama Victory Fund 2012 and has also supported Bill de Blasio for New York City Public Advocate.

Other notable contributors to President Obama’s re-election campaign include individuals and employees of companies such as: Google Inc., Time Warner, General Electric, and the University of California.

In his 21-month campaign in 2008, Obama raised $750 million (ABC News). In that same race, Senator John McCain was able to raise only $238 million. With fundraising more competitive in 2012, President Obama has raised $300 million with nearly $98 million cash on hand. Meanwhile, Mitt Romney has raised nearly $154 million with roughly $23 million cash on hand (Opensecrets.org).

President Obama’s campaign has been spending money of late levying heavy television advertisements that aim to improve the image of President Obama’s policies towards businesses. A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll shows that if the election were held now, 49% of registered voters would vote for Obama while 43% for Romney (Bloomberg).

Dan Zwirn & Monica Keany Support Safe Horizon

Safe Horizon is a NYC based "victim assistance" agency located on the 3rd floor at 2 Lafayette Street, New York, NY 10007.  Established in 1978, Safe Horizon has grown to become the largest victims' service agency in the United States.  They respond to over 250,000 children, adults, and families each year, and supporters help us provide comprehensive services that help our clients overcome crisis and restore their lives.

Safe Horizon - the largest victims' service agency in the U.S.

Dan Zwirn and his wife, Monica Keany, are part of the Safe Horizon community of sponsors.  While Keany serves on the Safe Horizon Board of Directors, both Zwirn and Keany contribute financial support that is channeled throughout the agency in an effort to provide the following services:

1. Help and Hope for Child Victims of Abuse
2. A Refuge for Families from Domestic Violence
3. Second Chances for Homeless Youth
4. Lifelines through Hotlines
5. Helping Victims of Stalking
6. Freeing Victims from Modern-Day Slavery
7. Supporting Victims of Rape and Sexual Assault
8. Giving Victims Places to Turn for Help
9. Restoring Peace of Mind after Violence and Abuse
10. Giving Safer and Brighter Futures to More Than 250,000 People

As the website states, violence and abuse can affect anyone, regardless of race, ethnicity, socio-economic status, location, or background. Safe Horizon programs and services are available to children, youth, women, men, and families facing crisis.  Donations to Safe Horizon can be made directly on the website.

Dan Zwirn Businessweek Resources

A couple months back Dan Zwirn was featured in the Market & Finance section of Bloomberg Businessweek.  William (Bill) Cohan wrote the article and provided a case study of D.B. Zwirn & Co - recounting the steps that lead to the rapid rise and horrifying fall of the hedge fund that once managed assets of $12 billion.  Bill Cohan is a Bloomberg Television contributing editor and the author of House of Cards: A Tale of Hubris and Wretched Excess on Wall Street and The Last Tycoons: The Secret History of Lazard Frères & Co.  His article explained how Dan Zwirn found quick success as Founder and Managing Partner of D.B. Zwirn & Co but ultimately lost everything trying to do the right thing when irregularities in paperwork were discovered.  Cohan was interviewed on Bloomberg Radio where he further emphasized his support of Zwirn's character and capabilities.

In summary, Zwirn was an excellent hedge fund manager, pioneering a method to earn great returns from a large number of relatively smaller investments.  Cohan credits Zwirn with creating the market in which he found success.  He later spent millions of dollars to hire a private investigation team to uncover misfiled paperwork.  He then submitted all of the information to the SEC.  Ultimately, the SEC exonerated Zwirn of any wrong-doing but sought legal ramifications for the former D.B. Zwirn & Co CFO for mishandling [a relatively minute amount of] funds that the firm was ultimately responsible for.  Additionally, it was noted that there was no indication that any personal gain was achieved from the irregularities in paperwork.  However, Dan Zwirn lost D.B. Zwirn & Co and billions in assets as a result of the duration of the investigation.  The SEC took so long to review the information surrounding the case that by the time they responded, investors were left without resources they need to appropriately file their taxes and ultimately pulled their funds.  Despite a long endured attempt to try to do everything right, Dan Zwirn ultimately sacrificed everything.

Innocence Project Progresses | Dan Zwirn "Interested"

If you haven't chanced upon Dan Zwirn on Facebook, then you wouldn't know that one of his interests is the Innocence Project.  The project, which flies somewhat under the radar in terms of the amount of publicity it receives, is gaining momentum and making a bigger impact each and every year.  Taken from their website, "The Innocence Project is a national litigation and public policy organization dedicated to exonerating wrongfully convicted people through DNA testing and reforming the criminal justice system to prevent future injustice."  The project's mission is more clearly stated through the oversimplified statistic presented in the upper right corner of the Project's homepage (lower right portion of header), "March 12, 2012: 289 Exonerated".

The Innocence Project is a non-profit legal clinic affiliated with the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University.  From having less than a dozen post-conviction DNA exonerations between 1989 and its "official" birth in 1992, the Innocence project has since been averaging between 15 and 20 exonerations annually over the last decade.  Remarkably, they have earned exonerations in 35 states and Washington, D.C., making their mark nationally despite their prime ops taking place in NYC.  Being a NYC native himself, Dan Zwirn is somewhat of a supportive neighbor of the Innocence Project.

Although the program is performing exceptionally and their success gives reason for celebration, it is obvious that the work must weigh heavy on the hearts of those involved.  Recall the movie, "The Hurricane"- The story of Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, a boxer wrongly imprisoned for murder, and the people who aided in his fight to prove his innocence (IMDB.com).  While his exoneration was triumphant and left viewers with a small feeling of comfort at the end, it was nearly impossible to avoid having a stronger feeling of sadness and anger as a result of the countless number of years that Rubin Carter wrongfully spent behind bars while the life and promise of success he once knew was stripped away.  

Through the work of the Innocence Project, we learn the following:

• Seventeen people had been sentenced to death before DNA proved their innocence and led to their release.
• The average sentence served by DNA exonerees has been 13 years.
• About 70 percent of those exonerated by DNA testing are members of minority groups.
• In almost 40 percent of DNA exoneration cases, the actual perpetrator has been identified by DNA testing.

It is evident that the work of the Innocence Project is helping to fix some of the wrong decisions that were made by the Justice system.  At the same time, it is also evident that there is still a lot of work to be done and a greater amount of support that the non-profit operation could use to handle more cases.  If one organization can find point out 289 wrong decision over just 2 decades, the daunting statistic becomes the exponentially higher number of cases that exist that have yet to surface and, therefore, the coinciding devastation that innocent people have suffered (and continue to suffer) having been wrongfully accused of a crime they did not commit.  To help, you can make a donation to the Innocence Project. 

D.B. Zwirn Presentation | Tonight 6pm

Dan Zwirn is giving a presentation tonight entitled, "Exploiting the Full Spectrum of Illiquid Investments", at 6pm at Bernstein Global Wealth Management (Sponsor).  Talk is co-sponsored by the Harvard Business School Club of New York (HBSCNY) and the Harvard Business School Angels of New York (HBSANY).  Read more about this D.B. Zwirn event.

Investors, Capital, Markets - All in a Day's Work at Brookings Institution

The Brookings Institution is a nonprofit public policy organization based in Washington, DC considered to be the most influential, most quoted and most trusted think tank.  The Brookings Institution traces its beginnings to 1916, when a group of leading reformers founded the Institute for Government Research (IGR), the first private organization devoted to analyzing public policy issues at the national level (Ref: Brookings Institution History).  Two sister organizations were created.  First, in 1922, the Institute of Economics was created.  Then, in 1924 a graduate school was created.  They merged in 1927 and the Brookings Institution Trustees picked the first president, University of Chicago professor, Harold Moulton.

Harold Moulton
First President | Brookings Institution

As a Brookings Institution Trustee, Dan Zwirn supports the Brookings Institution mission to conduct high-quality, independent research and provide innovative, practical recommendations in an effort to strengthen American democracy, foster the economic and social welfare, security and opportunity of all Americans and secure a more open, safe, prosperous and cooperative international system.

In the past year, Dan Zwirn contributed to a Brookings Institution publication entitled, "Rebuilding America: The Role of Foreign Capital and Global Foreign Investors".  Summarily, the paper was about the influence that foreign government entities had in the world economy and the mere "partial" understanding that American political leaders and policy makers had of investing practices, management and governance of these sources of foreign capital. Below is an excerpt:

Sovereign wealth funds, foreign state managed social security plans, foreign currency reserve funds, foreign government employee pension funds, state-controlled operating companies and other foreign investing vehicles today collectively control trillions of dollars in assets and are projected to maintain significant growth over the next decade. These disparate foreign government entities－characterized in this report as Global Public Investors (“GPIs”)－are becoming increasingly influential players in the world economy. In the volatile contemporary global financial environment, the investment strategies of these foreign entities will impact capital flows and affect markets around the world.

Currently we find ourselves faced with an economy filled with uncertainty.  However, we find it certain that the U.S. economy is influenced by foreign investment activity whether it be directly or indirectly.  Mr. Zwirn, among many other highly intelligent and dedicated experts, has dedicated a career to understanding finance and developing sound investment strategies.   His contribution of knowledge to various organizations such as the Brookings Institution is an invaluable service that helps decision makers understand and manage the uncertainty of the world market - bringing the U.S. economy one step closer to success.