It doesnt bother me anymore. If somebody had invested ,with you in the very beg what kind of rate of turn what that have been compounded . Paul 10 became, like, 160. David is it too late to invest retroactively into that . [laughter] woman would you fix your tie, please . David well, people wouldnt recognize me if my tie was fixed, but ok. Just leave it this way. All right. I dont consider myself a journalist, and nobody else would consider myself a journalist. I began to take on the life of being an interviewer evenofhough i have a day job unning private equity firm. How do you define leadership . Whbo is it that makes so tick . I read the other day that you opened your fund for 24 hours, and 5 billion showed up. Now how does somebody raise 5 billion in 24 hours . It wasnt exactly true. Oh. It was true in the sense that once the offing was open befiuse it was first come, t served there was a lot of demand, and 23 hours later, it was filled up, but it took a number of months of preparation. David that makes me feel better that you didnt but it took a number odo it just in 24 hours. So how much do you nage now overall . I think its david so you started your fund in what year . Paul 1977. And how much money did you have then . 1. 3 million. From . It was friendsd family. I was a practicing lawyer, and in early 1977, i decided that what i had been doing, managing a small amount of a tiny amount of friends anly money was much more interesting than practicing law. David you grew up in teaneck, new jersey, and manhattan, and you went to the university of Rochester Paul right. It was a wonderful experience, but it was a daunting experience, id especially because it. Exactly like what i was doing. David but you went to practice law in new york. In the absence of a better idea. David ok. So i practiced law in new york initially,s well, and i practiced law in washington paul sad to hear. David so when i gave up the practice of law to go into business, my mother said, you know you went to law school. What are you going to do . You dont know anything about business. What did your mother say when you said, she said, you know, what . Paul can you earn a living . [laughter] david so you started, and you worked out ofour apartment, onand you had the 1. 5 milfrom , so what was the strategy that you used to get off the ground . A tiny bit of context. My dad was a retail pharmacist, d after i started attending law school, he said, well, you have to learn how to be an investor. And he and i tra sd tiny amounts of tecks and mining stocks tother. Like, 2,000 of this or 5,000 of this, so i became very, veryterests trading, and in the period of time from 1967, 1968 through 1974, he and i found just about every possible way conceivable to lose money, and so when i started elliott in 1977, i was determined to engage in a trading strategy that made money all the time, and so for the first 10 years or so of elliotts existence, the primary strategy was convertible bond hedging. Buy the bond, short the stock. A strong positive carry, some trading profits. I practiced it on low leverage, and it did the job. The job meaning a consistent return, making more money more or less all the time. David so 1977, i was in the white house then, getting inflation to 19 per annum, so did that affect you paul you did it. David right. Did that affect your age strategy at all or not really . [laughter] well, its interestingbeca, actually those rates were a couple of years later. 77, there were to normal Interest Rates, and normally, the path from a 5 , 6 Interest Rate to 15 or 17 is a path of losing significant amounts of money when youre long b but the hedging worked very, very well, and so the absolute level of the Interest Rates provided a strong positive carry. You made money on interest sharing on the short stock, and so those years were very high so called standstill rates of return plus the opportunity for trading profits. David so where did the name elliott come from . Paul my middle name. David ok. So that was hard to find, that middle name, or did you think of any other greek names or roman names . You just thought your middle name . That was the only name you considered, or thought it was better than paul. David ok. When did you realize you were really better than te average guy doing thnds of things . I never thought of it that way. I was completely determined to just make a rate of return, really, recapture my Parents Money that i had lost previously, and keep finding ways to pursue that goal of absolute retu sat a time when convertib were , everaged, and more competitive. David the core of what you do, you call it a macro nd or a value fund . What would you describyour inv . Some people call what we do multistrategy. Others call it absolute return. As close as le to all the time. What weve done over the years in pursuit of that goal, as vanilla convertible hedging became uninteresting, was add other ways of generating absolute return to the mix. For example, we i came to feel and part of it was because of my experience as a lawyer that manual activities, trading manual effort for risk, was a good way to add value and also control risk. Thats why bankruptcy, distressed securities, became our largest capital deployment, and thats why in recent years equity activism has become a very important capital deployment technique. David tha important part of what you do now is what you call equity activism . So there a a couple that are verwellknown. Let me talk about one thats very famous all over the world. Yo abought some bonds frentina. You may remember this, and you held onto it for a long time, you pursued it in the courts and so forth, and you ultimately reached a settlement that was pretty favorable for your investors. Was it h heh. It was not hard to hold on in a portfolio sense e at no time until the current government came into office i believe in december 2015 at no time before that did the previous two governments negotiate with us. So sometimes, the stubbornness or motivations of your adversary cause keu to not be able to deal, and as the claim mounts up, it becomes pheentially a larger recovery. David but did any of your investors say, paul, youve made a little profit. David but dits ok. F your go on to Something Else . Did they ever say this during this long period of time . Pauld interestingly, no. Dahey didnt . Ok. And it was not an easy situation. I mean, it wasnt only the 14 or 15 years holdis thing, but it was contentious. David smeyou didnt worry that dy was gonna maybe, you know, physically attack you from argentina . You didnt worry about that . Paul this isntlace to talk about the security arrangements, but it was a contentious situatio so if somebody had invested with you in the very beginning and he or she kept their money with you from the very beginning i dont know if anybody did that at kind of rate of return would they have compounded over 40 years . Paul mom did that. David your mother is 99 years old . Yeah, 99 plus. 99 ps. Shes waiting for that call next year. David i assume she is proud of youi assume. Yes, she is. And is she david i assume she is pro[laughter]i assume. The answer to your other question is from the beginning a 13. 5 net compounded rate return, so one dollar beca, like, 160, 165, and there were some early investors that have stayed in basically all the time. David in other words,er a 40, net. Net for 40 years. Right. Thats pretty good. Is it too late to invest retroactively into that . I guess probably. [laughter] so today, you do other things like that you take Corporate Bonds or government bonds and youre willing to litigate, and that is something that has generally been profitable . Litigation is alwa a last resort in a situation in which theres a dispute about seniity or a claim. Its part of the equation. One of the risting and valuecreation strategies is uncorrelation. Uncorrelation is a wonderful element to add to an absolute return seeking portfolio because if youre doing something that has a pattern of risk and return, even if its volatile, even if its binary, make a lot, lose a lot, but a pattern of return that doesnt have anything to do with the course of the stock orond markets or anything else in your portfolio, tats an elegant part mix. David so do you ever, say, do research on a comy ny and then lets company and then you call up or somebody calls up the ceo an csay, this is a way yld improve your company, do this and that, and they say, thats a good idea. Sh i had thought of tha . Thats interesting. The way youre asking the question, it presupposes that the respoof the cos either anghiding under their desks or some combination. Eitand thats wrong, uyou would say . Ks paul no. Sometimes, youre actually knocking on an open door. My style and our style as a teais doing the work as troughly as we can to develop a thesis, to assesrewhether we think therly is an aioion or a series of a that could be taken to eliminate underperformance or ameliorate a situation, mp then contacting a y privately, testing with consultants or bankers, testing our ideas, and trying to generate a dialogue, d and sometimes, you f thatg testing our ideas, on an open door. Some theres a founder or a Management Team thats ready to sell out or happy to go on to Something Else, but they dont want to feel that theyre deserting their staff, their employees, so theres a lot of Different Reasons why a company thats readyti fr or new blood likes to see a resolution that can maximize value. David how many investment professionals do you now have in your firm . s about 120. David how do decisions go forward . i have a coceo and a cocio, and hes been with me since 1989, and in that period of time, we more than just complete each others sentences. The founding impulse of the hedge fund idea is independence of thinking. Its the opposite of investing by committee, and the st hedge fund folks, of course, were by themselves. They were sort of privateers on the worlds investment oceans, and i never thought that the craft would be susceptible to an organizational approach, team approach, and i actually never really thought that i would be able to be a good manager and a good team leader. The way it actually by which we attempt to train people to accept responsibility to deliver trustworthy insights, inputs, to have done the work, to have commissioned the work, but john or i generally approve every meaningful position and certainly every we have deep discussions about every large position. You have an image, thoug of being a person that strikes fear in a lot of ceos. That theyre going to get a call from paul singer. So does that image bother you, that you have an image of being a tough person and commanding . What ive learned over the years is to not care too much about opprobrium and unfair press. Its good when a corporate execute listens with the understanding that we are real, that we have the capacity to carry through and the history of carrying through on our projects that we undertake and that we need to be convinced in order to say ok, sorry, whicsometimes we do. Sorry. We were wrong, or, doing a great job. So it doesnt bother me anymore. David so how do you see the economy right now . Are you worried about the economy . Im very concerned about where we are in terms of the financial system, the economy, the american economy, global economy. After 9 yearbeof what i consider t distorted set of policies comply oriented towards what i regard as metary extremism, combined with what i consider to be growthsuppressive fiscal policies, regulatory, tax, and so i think its created a distorted recovery thats been partially reonsible for this augmentation, exacerbation of inequality thats caused a combination of that and the incomplete recovery has eesused this middleclass s and edginess around the world, whicl has led to some politiinge parties and fringe thoughts, populism, and so after 9 years of this artificial levitation on the part ofinancial assets, highend real estate, art, the things that rich people buy, what we have today is a Global Financial system thats just about as leveraged, and soand i dont think the finaial system is more sound, and i dont think that the fixes that have been put into place have actually created a sounfinancial system, so i dont believe that confidence is justified in policymakers and in central bankers, and the fact that confidence has not been lost up to now is obvious, but if and when confidence is lost, i think it could be lost in a very abrupt fashion, g conceivably a ruckus in the bond market, stock markets. Itdavid now in the pal world, you have become well known in the Republican Party outside your firm. Last president ial election, who was your favorite candidate . [laughter] i stood aside for most of 2015 and then supported marco rubio. David ok, and when he dropped out, did you have anybody next . [laughr] paul um, no. I stood aside. David dk, but ultimately whald trump was the nomiof the party, did you support him then as the nominee . I voted for him. Ok. Paul and theres i was not going to vote for Hillary Clinton as snde of my republican frdid, and i became optimistic about some of the opportunits in Economic Growth and regulatory reform, tax reform. David has donald trump invited you down to vit him . Did you know him before he was elected president . Paul i did not. I invested in his bonda co. David ok. Those were highgrade bonds . [laughter] paul they on the date of issue. [laughter and applause] david they later became highyield . And belo right. [laughter] david so have you seen him since hes president , and have you given him any advice . Dpaul i visited the white house once a few months ago, d we chad ed a bit about taxes onomic policy. David you have given a lot of money, raised a lot of money for republicans. Do you think ygotten value for your money . Do you meet anybody . Do they listen to you . How much influence do you get for all the money that youve given to these people . Pant think of in terms of value for your money. Its a very interesting thing with politics, and not that many of my peers have the staying power or stubbornness or stupidity to persist as long in the political arena or, activist, funder, fundraiser as i, and many people find and feel that the reliability and effectiveness that they expect and find in their businesses not whad and feel that the reliability in ps, and so the answer to your question is i do have and do speak toveolicymakers, try to cideas about the things that i know best toveolicymakers, out regulatory reform, the financial regulation, the economy, the sundness of the financitem. David do they listen . Paul sometimes. David they sometimes say, well, thank you for your ideas. By the way, im having a fundraiser in a week, or they dont do tha thats not the way it goes, but what they their problem i mean, lets be thats nohumanists here. Es, their pris that they are subject to all kinds of forces, all kinds of pressures coming from 360 degrees on their compasses, and so the right policies and the best ideas are not necessarily and f them listen and many of them are smart. Theyre not e cessarily things that me final cut, but i think its important for citizens to informed citizens to try to give assistance. Were among republican activists who actually can, in a relativelunconfli were notwe reve less parochial ins in t things that we talk tolit than most folks. You have made a fair amount of money, and have been very involved in philanthropy. Onhe areas you have been involved with is human rights, and what propelled you to get involved in human righ and, lets say, Marriage Equality issues . First of all, i apply to philanthropy the same spirit of activism, trying to get involved, trying to make a difference, make an impact, create things, not just write out a check. Its a similar impulse as the impulses that govern my investing style. He case of gay rights, my younger son came out to me as gay in 1998 when he was 21 years old, and shortly after some brief discussions, i became very interested in being a funde of gay rights groups, of helping out in that realm. At the beginning, just writing out checks. At the beginningpursuant to agreement with my son, anonymously, but over a period of time, it became overt, and over a period of time, i anm became quite friendly with lacy gay rights groups, including democrats, hardcore democrats, and we started working together on different projects. The culmination of that was and it was really a very, very highly strategic and wellexecuted project was a partnership with the governor of new york with us and our democratic friends to make gay marriage legal in new york, ich required republican state senators help, and weinvolved in that. David when youre not iny or your investors money and youre not giving away money, you must have some tim, so what actually gives you pleasure outside of tse other activities . Paul im a musician. I play piano and keyboards. Or you do it at home, paul im a musician. I plaor do you have a band . Ive been in a number of bands, amateur bands, of course, and i play with musicians now. David is this because you took lessons when you were young and you didnt quite get the level you wanted and you get pleasure now doing it, or did you this late in life . I started taking piano lessons when i was 10 years old and started becomioc interested in playingand blues and honkytonk piano when i was 11 years old. So itsive been in reggae bands, blues nds, rock bands. Ive had a lot of fun because most of my family are musicians, and so we have a family band also, and so we have a guitar player, a saxophone player, drummer. David what would you like to see as the headline of what you ccomplished in your life . He tried to make a difference. He prs ected a lot of peoplpital he was steady, reliable. David ok, well, thats pretty good. So a lot of people who are very wealthy, ive noticed, are not really happy. You seem like a pretty happy person. Would yoyou are happy with what youve accomplished . Youre not tortured . This is a form if therapy, david, whippreciate. [laughter] do you mind if i lie dow no. [laughter] paul, you have done an incredible job building a business that i admire what youve built, and what you havdone in philanthropy is really quite remarkable. So i want toerhank you for a great cotion, and i want to thank everybody here for listening. Thank you. Thank you. [applause] announcer support for the pbs presentation of this program was provided byal motors. I see a future. I see a good future. I see a future filled with roads and no rage. Both we see a future. With zero crashes. 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