Google chairman Eric Scmidt buys stake in New York hedge fund from Lehman Brothers
Google chairman Eric Schmidt has snapped up a 20 per cent stake in a New York hedge fund from the estate of Lehman Brothers Holdings.
Hillspire LLC, the family office of multi-billionaire Schmidt, signed the deal for a passive stake in the $36bn firm.
The price of the minority stake, which will not affect the management or operations of D.E Shaw, was not disclosed.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the Lehman Estate bought the stake for between $750m and $800m but had been looking to sell since 2013 but had struggled to find a buyer due to the lack of management rights.
Schmidt said in a statement:
I’ve known and respected [D.E Shaw founder David Shaw] for many years, and as a long-standing investor in the D.E Shaw group’s funds, I have the highest regard for their team and the firm that they’ve built.I'm excited to invest in an enterprise that has so successfully used technology to deliver superior risk-adjusted returns across asset classes globally.
Schmidt’s Google reports its first quarter earnings later today. Investors are hoping the internet giant can meet market forecasts after five straight misses in previous quarters.
At an event this week Schmidt was reported to identify voice recognition, image recognition and machine learning as Google’s three most-important projects.