Peter A. Cohen
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Peter A. Cohen is the chairman and CEO of Andover National Corporation, a public holding company. He was formerly the chairman and CEO of
Cowen Inc. Cowen Inc., is an American multinational independent investment bank and financial services company that operates through two business segments: a broker-dealer and an investment management division. The company's broker-dealer division offers ...
, also known as Cowen & Company. Prior to his current role, Cohen founded Ramius Capital Management in 1994, a $13 billion investment firm, which he merged with Cowen Inc. in 2009. Prior to this, Cohen was the chairman and chief executive officer of Shearson Lehman American Express from 1983 through 1991.Vanities on The Bonfire: Peter Cohen
Time, February 12, 1990


Early life and education

Cohen was born and raised on
Long Island, New York Long Island is a densely populated island in the southeastern region of the U.S. state of New York, part of the New York metropolitan area. With over 8 million people, Long Island is the most populous island in the United States and the 18th ...
. He is of
Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
descent. Cohen graduated from
Ohio State University The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best publ ...
in 1968 and received his
MBA A Master of Business Administration (MBA; also Master's in Business Administration) is a postgraduate degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration such as accounti ...
from
Columbia Business School Columbia Business School (CBS) is the business school of Columbia University, a Private university, private research university in New York City. Established in 1916, Columbia Business School is one of six Ivy League business schools and is one ...
in 1969.


Career

Cohen began his career on Wall Street at Reynolds & Co., later part of
Dean Witter Reynolds Dean Witter Reynolds was an American Brokerage firm, stock brokerage and securities firm catering to a variety of clients. Prior to the company's acquisition, it was among the largest firms in the securities industry with over 9,000 account execu ...
and in 1970, joined
CBWL-Hayden Stone Cogan, Berlind, Weill & Levitt, originally Carter, Berlind, Potoma & Weill, was an American investment banking and brokerage firm founded in 1960 and acquired by American Express in 1981. In its two decades as an independent firm, Cogan, Berlind, ...
. In 1973, Cohen was appointed assistant to the firm's chairman,
Sanford I. Weill Sanford I. "Sandy" Weill (; born March 16, 1933) is an American banker, financier and philanthropist. He is a former chief executive and chairman of Citigroup. He served in those positions from 1998 until October 1, 2003, and April 18, 2006, re ...
, the architect of a major consolidation of brokerage and investment banking firms in the 1960s and 1970s. Cohen would remain with the firm and was integral to its various mergers in the 1970s, including Shearson, Hammill & Co. and Loeb, Rhoades, Hornblower & Co. While there he held various positions including CAO, CFO, COO, chairman and CEO. In 1978, Cohen left Shearson for one year to work for
Edmond Safra Edmond J. Safra ( ar, ادموند يعقوب صفرا; 6 August 1932 – 3 December 1999) was a Lebanese-Brazilian banker who continued the family tradition of banking in Brazil and Switzerland. He was married to Lily Watkins from 1976 until ...
at Republic New York Corporation and the
Trade Development Bank Trade Development Bank (TDB) was a private Geneva-based bank built by Edmond Safra, who also founded Brazil's sixth largest bank, Banco Safra, in the 1950s. Beginning with only US$1 million in funds, TDB grew into the flagship of Safra’s interna ...
before returning to
Shearson Shearson was the name of a series of investment banking and retail brokerage firms from 1902 until 1994, named for Edward ShearsonAmerican Express American Express Company (Amex) is an American multinational corporation specialized in payment card services headquartered at 200 Vesey Street in the Battery Park City neighborhood of Lower Manhattan in New York City. The company was found ...
in 1981 at which time Cohen became president and chief operating officer and in 1983 chairman and chief executive officer. At age 36, Cohen was by far the youngest head of a major Wall Street firm. Shearson went on to acquire Lehman Brothers Inc. in 1984 and EF Hutton in 1988. During Cohen's career at Shearson, the firm made 24 acquisitions. In 1988, Cohen was a key player in the
leveraged buyout A leveraged buyout (LBO) is one company's acquisition of another company using a significant amount of borrowed money (leverage) to meet the cost of acquisition. The assets of the company being acquired are often used as collateral for the loan ...
of RJR Nabisco. Cohen and
Shearson Lehman Shearson was the name of a series of investment banking and retail brokerage firms from 1902 until 1994, named for Edward ShearsonF. Ross Johnson Frederick Ross Johnson, OC (December 13, 1931 – December 29, 2016) was a Canadian businessman, best known as the chief executive officer of RJR Nabisco in the 1980s. Early life and education Born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, on December 13, 1931, ...
in a proposed $17 billion buyout. Ultimately, Johnson and Cohen lost their bid for the company and RJR Nabisco was acquired by the private equity firm
Kohlberg Kravis Roberts KKR & Co. Inc., also known as Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., is an American global investment company that manages multiple alternative asset classes, including private equity, energy, infrastructure, real estate, credit, and, through its strate ...
. Cohen was portrayed by
Peter Riegert Peter Riegert (born April 11, 1947) is an American actor. He is best known for his roles as Donald "Boon" Schoenstein in ''Animal House'' (1978), oil company executive "Mac" MacIntyre in '' Local Hero'' (1983), pickle store owner Sam Posner in '' ...
in the 1993 film ''
Barbarians at the Gate ''Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco'' is a 1989 book about the leveraged buyout (LBO) of RJR Nabisco, written by investigative journalism, investigative journalists Bryan Burrough and John Helyar. The book is based upon a series of ...
'' depicting the RJR Nabisco buyout. In 1991, Cohen founded the securities and asset management businesses of
Republic National Bank of New York Republic New York Corporation was the holding company for Republic National Bank of New York, Safra Republic Holdings, and Safra Republic Bank. The company was controlled by billionaire Edmond Safra, who was killed in a fire in his Monte Carlo ...
. From November 1992 to May 1994, Cohen was vice chairman and a director of Republic New York. In July 1994, he founded an asset management company, Ramius Capital Group, which grew to $13 billion in assets undermanagement by 2008. In 2009, Ramius acquired Cowen and Co., a 100-year-old biotechnology and technology-focused securities firm where Cohen was chairman and CEO until December 2018 and chairman through June 2019. In 2019, Cohen retired from Cowen to pursue building new businesses and subsequently started three companies: Peter Cohen LLC, a personal holding company that invests in private and public companies; Difesa Capital Management, an arbitrage investment partnership he started with his son, Andrew Cohen; and Andover National Corporation, a holding company created for the purpose of acquiring essential-service companies. Over his career, Cohen has served on numerous corporate and philanthropic boards including those of
American Express American Express Company (Amex) is an American multinational corporation specialized in payment card services headquartered at 200 Vesey Street in the Battery Park City neighborhood of Lower Manhattan in New York City. The company was found ...
, The
New York Stock Exchange The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE, nicknamed "The Big Board") is an American stock exchange in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is by far the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed c ...
,
Kroll Inc Kroll is an American corporate investigation and risk consulting firm established in 1972 and based in New York City. In 2018, Kroll was acquired by Duff & Phelps. In 2021, Duff & Phelps decided to rebrand itself as Kroll, a process it complet ...
.,
Olivetti Olivetti S.p.A. is an Italian manufacturer of computers, tablets, smartphones, printers and other such business products as calculators and fax machines. Headquartered in Ivrea, in the Metropolitan City of Turin, the company has been part of ...
, Linkem S.p.A.,
Telecom Italia Gruppo TIM, legally TIM S.p.A. (formerly Telecom Italia S.p.A.), also known as the TIM Group in English, is an Italian telecommunications company with headquarters in Rome, Milan, and Naples, (with the Telecom Italia Tower) which provides fixe ...
, L-3 Corporation, The
New York City Opera The New York City Opera (NYCO) is an American opera company located in Manhattan in New York City. The company has been active from 1943 through 2013 (when it filed for bankruptcy), and again since 2016 when it was revived. The opera company, du ...
, The
Mount Sinai Medical Center Mount Sinai Hospital, formerly at times known as Mount Sinai Medical Center, is a 319-bed major urban hospital in Chicago, Illinois, with its main campus located adjacent to Douglass Park at 15th Street and California Avenue on the city's West Si ...
and the Children's Hearing Institute. He is currently lead director for Scientific Games, chairman of the board of directors of PolarityTE, a biologics company, and a director of Quadrant Biosciences, a diagnostics company built around epigenetics. He is also chairman of the American Museum of Finance and a director of the Gift of Life Marrow Foundation.


Personal life

Cohen has been married twice. His first marriage ended in divorce. He is married to former flight attendant Brooke Goodman; they have a daughter.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cohen, Peter A. Lehman Brothers people Jewish American bankers Ohio State University alumni Columbia Business School alumni Living people American chief executives of financial services companies Year of birth missing (living people) 21st-century American Jews