"Lisa Falcone is the bubbly, money-flinging wife of billionaire hedge funder Philip Falcone—who owns 20% of the New York Times. Lisa enjoys the simple things, like her $50 million mansion's basement apartment. She's a role model for young billionheiresses!

The NYT profiles Lisa today for her, uh, "philanthropic" activities, and while the disclosure about the huge stake in the paper that her husband's firm Harbinger holds is small, you can't say they don't allow her to hang herself with quotes:

Ms. Falcone was also reluctant to reveal her age, 40, saying she wanted to be a role model for young people.

Zingaroo! Lisa, a former model, made her name as a giving person by standing up at a banquet for the High Line and spontaneously pledging $10 million, of her husband's money! Since then, the city's cultural institutions have suddenly recognized Lisa's unique insight into, you know, culture:

When City Ballet asked her to be on the board last June, Ms. Falcone said she asked: "‘Why me? Do you really want me on the board? Is it about my husband or is it me?'"

We're scandalized you would even ask! The profile notes that Lisa's wasted who knows how much scratch by hiring publicist Matthew Hiltzik to hold her hand through the interview, and while he tries to cut her off repeatedly, he fails to prevent the creation of paragraphs like this:

While the couple live in the mansion that once belonged to Robert C. Guccione, founder of Penthouse magazine - which they purchased for $49 million last year - Ms. Falcone said she felt most at home in the basement apartment. "I'm still comfortable with the basic things," she said.

Lisa Falcone, you are a jewel of the city of New York! A precious jewel stuck right into a hissing, steaming subway grate, that's how valuable you are, to the city! "I speak from my heart," she says. "I know that sometimes can get me in trouble. But that's the only way I know how to be." Please—continue."

"

The Making of Philip Falcone

• 9/29/10 at 11:17 AM
• 11Comments

What makes a man want to amass more money than God, and once he has, keep going? For each hedge-fund manager the answers are a little bit different, and a little bit the same.

From today'sBloomberg Markets we believe we have identified the four primary things that motivated Harbinger Capital founder Philip Falcone (or as readers of this blog may know him, Mr. Lisa Falcone), whose fund made $11 billion betting against subprime, to become who he is today.

We begin with a sepia-tinted moment when Falcone first leaves his Minnesota hometown, all gawky of limb and Lionel Richie of hair, to seek his fortune in the big city.

Neil Sheehy, from nearby International Falls, had offered Falcone a ride to Harvard University, which had recruited both of them to play hockey for the Crimson. The car stalled in front of Falcone’s house, and Sheehy had to restart it on a hill while Falcone’s mother and one of his sisters sobbed their goodbyes.

“It’ll be all right, Mrs. Falcone; it’ll be all right,” Sheehy recalls telling Caroline Falcone as the car chugged to life and headed east.

Falcone was one of nine, and his mother still cared that he was leaving home! This is meaningful and leads us to Motivation 1: Phil can never let his mama down.

[To wit, later: "Galloway says he once set up a meeting for Falcone with a billionaire investor who was interested in Harbinger. Falcone said he couldn’t make the meeting because he had to go see his mother."]
Immediately after leaving home, life decided to punk young Philip by showing him that even when you think that things are tough, they can always get worse.

Falcone rode to Cambridge, Massachusetts, with his feet on the dashboard because Sheehy had packed a skate-sharpening machine on the floor of the front seat... Halfway there, the roof liner came loose and showered the young men with fiberglass insulation that stuck to them as they sweated in the late.

Motivation 2: The fuck he's going to go through something like that again. He is going to kick life's ass!

Then, he did not quite fit in at school.

Falcone was wide-eyed when he arrived at Harvard in 1980, says hockey teammate Greg Olson, who’s now a dentist in Minnetonka, Minnesota. “He was a deer in the headlights,” Olson says. After recovering from the initial shock, Falcone made himself something of a campus don. Hockey teammates called him “Fashion Phil” because he cared so much about his clothes, Olson says. He had a blue, three-piece suit that he wore often, and he always wore stylish shoes.

Motivation 3: Show those jerkoffs who called him a hick and a fag who the man is.

But after graduation, he was more confident.

[Wife Lisa] was working as a model when she met Phil Falcone through mutual friends at a Manhattan restaurant in the late 1980s.

Motivation 4: GIRLS!

Of course, a hot wife and incredible financial success doesn't keep the critics at bay. If anything, it just makes them worse.

“Just because a manager got the subprime trade right, it doesn’t necessarily mean he’s a skilled manager,” says Brad Balter, managing partner of Balter Capital Management LLC, a Boston-based firm that invests in hedge funds for clients. “There have been several funds that benefited from that bet in 2007 whose performance was mediocre before and continues to be mediocre today.”

Motivation 5: Show those jerkoffs who suggest he is a one-hit wonder who the man is. Then show them again. And again. Until he dies."

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2010/09/phil_falcone_is_not_an_atm.html

"Billionaire Not Rich Enough to Stop the Presses
In your disastrous Thursday media column: Philip Falcone cannot stop the media, a media reporter job is open now, a newspaper wants to see your tats, and the Boston Globe and Philly Inquirer are total wrecks, in separate ways.

Hedge fund billionaire (and husband of famous entrepreneur Lisa Falcone) Philip Falcone is lashing out—at the innocent media!

Falcone is upset about recent press coverage of his fund's investments, and yesterday he warned investors on a conference call to stop talking to reporters. Three of them then told Reuters all about it. Phil: you know damn well the only way to shut the media up is to own it.

Business Insider is seeking a media reporter!

Must "enjoy producing everything from one-sentence blurbs to photographs to explainer features to multi-thousand word-investigations." Why, that sounds like...you! And dozens of your acquaintances! Everyone, apply fast! Faster! Internet speed!

Ken Silverstein, the excellent Washington editor of Harper's Magazine, is leaving to take a fellowship with George Soros' Open Society Institute.

"Is Modesto Bee trying too hard to reach young readers?" Romenesko modestly asks, atop a story on the paper's "Show Us Your Tattoo" scheme to get 20-somethings to "stop by our website to view a few tattoos and maybe even pick up a copy of the newspaper." Newspapers can still bring a smile to our faces!

In less happy newspaper news, the Boston Globe is planning to offer two separate websites—one free, and one paid—in, presumably, an attempt to somehow make money (*snort*); and the brand-new owners of the Philly papers are already threatening to shut them down in a labor dispute. Woops."

http://gawker.com/5652255/billionaire-not-rich-enough-to-stop-the-presses

About Gawker.com -

Comments Section: I don't feel there is really an aggressor here as of today.. if it is seen as dif. let me know..

He was dubbed by the tabloids as a "greedy pig US billionaire" who brought Britain's HBOS to its knees. That was two years ago when hedge fund superstar Philip Falcone took a short position on the failing bank and made millions as its shares plummeted.

"Two years on, the tables have turned on the so-called midas of misery. Falcone's Harbinger Capital Partners has shrunk from managing assets valued at $26bn (£16bn) in 2008 to around $9bn now. The firm's main fund has fallen 15% in a year, according to investors, and is facing redemption calls from investors including Goldman Sachs and Blackstone Group.

Last week, Falcone, a former Barclays trader who grew up in Minnesota and played ice hockey at Harvard University, said he could handle the redemptions. But to compound his troubles, the US attorney's office in Manhattan and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) are reported to be looking into whether the fund properly disclosed a $113m personal loan it made to Falcone last year and illegally gave special treatment to Falcone and some clients."

http://moderateman.blogspot.com/2010/11/is-philip-falcone-greedy-pig.html