Bill Perkins | |
|---|---|
 Perkins in 2015 | |
| Born | February 2, 1969 |
| Alma mater | University of Iowa (BS) |
| Occupation(s) | Hedge fund manager, film producer, poker player |
William O. Perkins III (born February 2, 1969) is an American hedge fund manager, film producer, author, and high stakes poker player. Perkins manages Skylar Capital, an energy trading hedge fund that had approximately $500 million in assets under management as of 2023. [1]
Perkins grew up in Jersey City, New Jersey. His father, Bill Perkins, was a criminal defense attorney who served two terms in the New Jersey General Assembly and also played in four games as a running back for the New York Jets. His uncle was football player Don Perkins. His mother was a schoolteacher. [2] He graduated from St. Peter's Preparatory School in 1986. He received a B.S. in electrical engineering from the University of Iowa, his father's alma mater, where he was a walk-on defensive back for the Iowa Hawkeyes football team. He did not have good grades and quit playing football before his senior year to focus on graduating. [2] He never actually wanted to be engineer, with a career path almost pre-determined. [3]
In 1991, watching the movie Wall Street , Perkins knew that he wanted to work in finance and become rich. [3] He hung out for 3 days in the lobby of a company hiring screen clerks, persistently asking for a job as a peon. [3] Perkins then became a trainee for a clerk on the New York Mercantile Exchange at 4 World Trade Center, checking trade logs against computer entries. [3] He started off making under $16,000 per year, which he justified because he was getting experience. [3] [4] He received raises rather quickly. [5] In the evenings, Perkins drove a limo for traders, sometimes receiving large tips. [3] At night, he lived with his parents and read books on trading, the oil market, and options. [3] He eventually moved into a shared studio on the Upper West Side. [3]
In 1995, during the deregulation of the electricity market in Texas, Perkins moved to Houston to run a trade derivatives and options desk. [5] He was employed as a trader and risk manager for El Paso Energy, Statoil, AIG Energy Trading, and Zahr Securities. [6] By age 30, Perkins was a millionaire. [2]
In 1997, he founded Small Ventures USA, L.P. It was the lead investor in CUTUCO Energy, a project to build a liquefied natural gas facility and natural gas fueled power plant in El Salvador. [7]
In 2002, he joined his friend and former Enron trader John D. Arnold's new hedge fund, Centaurus Energy. He made $1 billion in trading profits for the firm, including taking the opposite side of trades that led to the collapse of Amaranth Advisors in 2006, making Arnold the youngest billionaire in the U.S. at age 33. Despite annual gains of over 100%, Centaurus shut down in 2012 due to low natural gas prices. Perkins, not ready to retire, then founded Skylar Capital, a fund to trade U.S. gas futures, options and swaps named after his daughter, Sky. [5] It raised $102 million in capital in its first 3 months. [8] [9]
In 2006, Perkins was a member of the board of directors of NorthernStar Natural Gas. [7]
Perkins made a $1.25 million profit in a week on a trade in the stock of Goldman Sachs in September 2008, during the 2007–2008 financial crisis. [10]
Perkins' fund gained more than 100% in 2021 and 208% in 2022 after betting on a surge in natural gas prices ahead of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and then adjusting positions as prices declined. [4] [1]
In 2009, Perkins became involved in film production, producing various films including After.Life (2009), Unthinkable (2010), and Cat Run (2011). [11]
Perkins has two daughters from a previous marriage to Stephanie Park. In July 2022, he married Lara Sebastian, an actress and professional dancer. [2] Perkins, a proponent of spending or giving away all of his earnings during his lifetime, lives what has been described as an "extravagant lifestyle" and has a popular Instagram account. Perkins also makes $500,000 "novelty bets" with friends on goals such as losing weight. He owns a 55' Sea Ray Stream Boat yacht. [12]
In 2014, for his 45th birthday, at his expense, Perkins rented a "secluded hotel" in St. Barts, flew in friends, and hired Natalie Merchant to perform, saying that it was a once in a lifetime chance for such an experience. [13]
In 2017, he filed a lawsuit against the United States Virgin Islands, claiming that he was entitled to a $5 million tax refund for tax year 2015. [14]
In 2020, Perkins released the book Die with Zero, a book for the well-to-do on how to get the most from both money and life, noting that dying with money in the bank means missed experiences and extraneous working. [2] [13]
In 2021, Perkins bought a house on Lake Austin from Bumble founder Whitney Wolfe Herd. It was listed for $28.5 million. [15] That year, Perkins offered a 1-week stay in the house in a charity auction via Charitybuzz to benefit the National Tennis Foundation. [16]
In 2022, Perkins paid $15,275,000 at auction to acquire The Sugar Shack, a 1976 painting by Ernie Barnes that Perkins had coveted for years. It had been estimated to sell for $200,000, although Perkins knew the estimate was artificially low. Perkins expects the painting to be worth over $100 million in the future. The painting is a duplicate of the original, painted in 1971 by Barnes, featured in the sitcom Good Times , and currently owned by Eddie Murphy, who purchased it for $50,000 from the estate of Marvin Gaye. [17] [2] Perkins also owns artwork by DabsMyla, Roy Lichtenstein, Angelbert Metoyer, and Augusto Torres. [18]
Perkins has contributed to the political campaign of Andrew Yang and has also contributed over $350,000 to Yang's foundation, Humanity Forward. He has also contributed over $250,000 to the Libertarian National Committee, and $25,000 to the House Majority PAC, which supports a Democratic Party majority in the United States House of Representatives. [19]
Perkins, a poker player, has entered notable events including the World Series of Poker, Big One for One Drop, Triton Poker Super High Roller Series, PokerStars Big Game , and PokerStars Caribbean Adventure. [20] [21] [22] Perkins is friends with and often plays with Dan Bilzerian. [23]
His total live tournament winnings exceed $5.5 million of which $2.7 million came from his One Drop cash at the WSOP. [24] Despite his winnings, Perkins says he has also lost millions and considers himself an amateur. [17]
In 2016, Perkins contributed $1.5 million towards the construction of the William O. Perkins III '86 Athletic Center at St. Peter's Preparatory School, his alma mater. [25]
In 2017, in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma, Perkins chartered a jet to provide generators, chainsaws and critical need medical supplies to the United States Virgin Islands. [26]
In 2023, Perkins funded a $5.9 million gift to the DePelchin Children's Center. [27]
Dan Harrington is a professional poker player, best known for winning the Main Event at the 1995 World Series of Poker. He has earned one World Poker Tour title, two WSOP bracelets, and over six million dollars in tournament cashes in his poker career. He is also a member of the Poker Hall of Fame.
Christopher Philip Ferguson is an American professional poker player. He has won six World Series of Poker events, including the 2000 WSOP Main Event, and the 2008 NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship. Ferguson is a computer scientist by training and education.
Steven A. Cohen is an American hedge-fund manager and owner of the New York Mets of Major League Baseball since September 14, 2020, owning just over 97% of the team. He is the founder of hedge fund Point72 Asset Management and S.A.C. Capital Advisors, which closed after pleading guilty to insider trading and other financial crimes.
Duane "Dewey" Tomko is an American former kindergarten teacher turned professional poker player, based in Winter Haven, Florida.
John Douglas Arnold is an American philanthropist, former Enron executive, and founder of Arnold Ventures LLC, formerly the Laura and John Arnold Foundation. In 2007, Arnold became the youngest billionaire in the U.S. His firm, Centaurus Advisors, LLC, was a Houston-based hedge fund specializing in trading energy products that closed in 2012. He now focuses on philanthropy through Arnold Ventures LLC. Arnold is a board member of Breakthrough Energy Ventures and since February 2024, is a member of the board of directors of Meta.
Chau Tu Giang is an American professional poker player who is a three-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner and a three-time final tablist of the World Poker Tour with over $3 million in live tournament winnings alone.
Russell Aaron Boyd, commonly known as Dutch Boyd, is an American professional poker player from Culver City, California.
Theo Jørgensen is a Danish professional poker player, based in Copenhagen.
Commodities Corporation was a financial services company, based in Princeton, New Jersey, that traded actively across various commodities. The firm was noted as one of the leading commodity and futures trading firms. CC is credited for launching the careers of many notable hedge fund investors and for its influence on global macro investing.
Amaranth Advisors LLC was an American multi-strategy hedge fund founded by Nicholas M. Maounis and headquartered in Greenwich, Connecticut. At its peak, the firm had up to $9.2 billion in assets under management before collapsing in September 2006, after losing in excess of $6 billion on natural gas futures. Amaranth Advisors collapse is one of the biggest hedge fund collapses in history and at the time (2006) largest known trading losses.
David M. Einhorn is an American investor, hedge fund manager, and amateur poker player. He is the founder and president of Greenlight Capital, a "long-short value-oriented hedge fund".
Alexander Kravchenko is a professional poker player based in Moscow, Russia. In the 2007 World Series of Poker, he cashed six times, including finishing fourth at the Main Event and the $1,500 Limit Omaha Hi/Lo event where he won his first career WSOP bracelet. Kravchenko had some other notable cashes in 2007, including making the final table in the inaugural World Series of Poker Europe tournament, a £2,500 buy-in H.O.R.S.E. event, as well as finishing 3rd in the Moscow Millions, which featured the largest ever prizepool for a tournament held in Russia.
Eric "sheets" Haber is an American professional poker player and hedge fund manager from Syosset, New York.
Jason DeWitt is a professional poker player from Mishawaka, Indiana, who won the 2010 World Series of Poker $5,000 No Limit Hold'em event. and the 2016 World Series of Poker $1,500 Millionaire Maker.
Boaz Weinstein is an American hedge fund manager and founder of Saba Capital Management. He rose to prominence at Deutsche Bank in the early and mid 2000s with his credit default swap and capital structure arbitrage trading strategies. He then formed a proprietary trading group within Deutsche Bank. After leaving the bank in 2009, Weinstein started Saba Capital Management as a separate hedge fund. As of September 2022, Saba manages $4.8 billion in assets.
Andy Frankenberger is a professional poker player and former equity derivatives trader from New York City. In his first year as a professional poker player, Frankenberger was named World Poker Tour (WPT) Season IX Player of the Year. Card Player Magazine described this as one of poker's best rookie years in a September 2011 cover story. Frankenberger followed this up by winning back to back bracelets at the World Series of Poker in 2011 and 2012. He has been prominently featured in financial media including The Wall Street Journal, Fox Business Network, and Bloomberg Television.
Pierre Andurand is a French businessman and hedge fund manager. His funds have approximately $2bn in assets under management and have produced cumulative returns of between 900 to 1,300% for investors since 2008. He is also the majority shareholder of the international kickboxing league Glory.
Daniel Brandon Bilzerian is an American poker player, businessman, and social media influencer. He is the son of corporate takeover specialist Paul Bilzerian who provided Dan with a trust fund.
Daniel Shak is an American semi-professional poker player and hedge fund manager known for his accomplishments in high buy-in poker events.
Noah Schwartz is an American professional poker player from Miami Beach, Florida. He has won a World Series of Poker bracelet and a World Poker Tour title. He has reached six WPT final tables, five WSOP final tables and his lifetime winnings as of April 2016 exceed $5.3 million.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
