Marc Lasry Biography

Marc Lasry is an American billionaire hedge fund manager and co-founder and chief executive officer of hedge fund Avenue Capital Group.

Early life and education

Lasry was born in Marrakech, Morocco to a Moroccan-Jewish family. When he was seven, his family immigrated to the U.S. His father, Moise, was a computer programmer and his mother, Elise, was a schoolteacher. At night, his parents worked a second job selling Moroccan clothing to boutique stores. Lasry grew up in West Hartford, Connecticut and received a B.A. in history from Clark University in 1981 and a J.D. from New York Law School in 1984. His sister is Sonia Gardner with whom was founded Amroc Investments and Avenue Capital Group in 1989 and 1995, respectively.

Career

While in law school, Lasry worked as a clerk for the then Chief Bankruptcy Judge of the Southern District of New York Edward Ryan. After law school he worked as an attorney specializing in bankruptcy at the law firm Angel & Frankel. After one year, Lasry accepted a job as the director of the private debt department at the investment firm R.D. Smith (now Smith Vasillou Management). It was there he first got involved in trade claims. After earning $25 million for the firm in his first year and only receiving a $10,000 bonus, he left R.D. Smith and accepted a position as Co-Director of the Bankruptcy and Corporate reorganization Department at Cowen & Company. At Cowen & Company, Lasry recruited his sister Sonia Gardner, also an attorney, to join the firm to assist in the trade claims department. Lasry left Cowen & Company and joined the Robert M. Bass Group after he was approached by Robert Bass to manage a pool of capital focused on distressed investments.

In 1989, Lasry and his sister Sonia Gardner founded the distressed debt investment firm Amroc Investments with a $100 million in seed money from various investors. Amroc purchased both trade claims and bank debt held by vendors and suppliers to bankrupt and/or distressed companies. In 1995, Lasry and Gardner struck out on their own with $7 million of capital to found Avenue Capital Group, which initially focused on distressed debt and special situations primarily in the United States. Lasry and Gardner successfully expanded the firm's investment focus to Europe and Asia and the siblings went on to build the hedge fund to over $11 billion in assets.

In 2013, Marc Lasry was being considered by Washington to be the next U.S. ambassador to France. However, such a move would have required him to divest his majority stake in Avenue and potentially sell all of his firm's positions in France. As such, he decided to withdraw from consideration.

Philanthropy and political contributions

In 2004, Lasry and his wife created a chair at the University of Pennsylvania to support a scholar and teacher in the School of Arts and Sciences. The couple also co-chairs the Penn Parent Leadership Committee, while Cathy sits on the School of Arts and Sciences Board of Overseers as well. In 2005, Lasry and his wife donated $5 million to Clark University to build a new science center. University President John Bassett named the new science center the "Lasry Center for Bioscience".

Lasry has served as a director of the 92nd Street Y and the Big Apple Circus and as a trustee of the Mount Sinai Medical Center. Lasry is a prominent donor to Democratic Party causes.

Personal life

Lasry is married to Cathy Cohen who he met while in college. They have five children together, one of whom now works in the White House. Lasry is a competitive athlete, especially in basketball and tennis. He also continues to have a deep interest in comics.