Hedge fund manager Steven Eisman, best known for betting on the collapse of the US housing market, has been placed on an indefinite leave of absence by his employer Neuberger Berman after he said on social media that he was “celebrating” the deaths of Palestinians in Gaza.
His firm said Mr Eisman did not speak on its behalf and called his actions “objectionable”.
He profited from the 2007 crisis in the US subprime mortgage market, which turned into a global financial crisis, by shorting the stocks of American banks. The crisis was the basis for the 2015 film The Big Short. Mr Eisman's character was played by actor Steve Carell.
The fund manager's comments on his X account, which featured the Neuberger Berman logo, were in response to a graphic post showing a burning building and people shouting in agony, apparently as a result of an Israeli attack.
A user on the platform said the world was silent about the devastation in Gaza, to which Mr Eisman responded: “You must be kidding. We are not silent. We are celebrating.”
Mr Eisman, a senior portfolio manager at Neuberger Berman, earlier deleted his account on X.
He later wrote that the post was a “mistake” and that he had meant to comment on Israel’s actions against Hezbollah in Lebanon.
“I posted about that multiple times, one time inadvertently in response to a post referencing deaths in Gaza and having nothing to do with Lebanon,” Mr Eisman wrote.
“When this was pointed out to me, I immediately deleted my post and I regret the mistake.”
Israel killed a top Hezbollah commander and other senior figures in the Lebanese movement in an air strike on Beirut on Friday, vowing to press on with a new military campaign until it is able to secure the area around the Lebanese border.
The strike inflicted another blow on Hezbollah after two days of attacks on the group in which pagers and walkie-talkies used by its members exploded, killing 37 people and wounding thousands. Those attacks were widely believed to have been carried out by Israel, which has neither confirmed nor denied its involvement.
Mr Eisman’s leave is effective immediately, Alex Samuelson, a company representative, said on Friday.
His personal comments on social media are his alone and he does not speak for Neuberger Berman
Neuberger Berman spokesperson
“His personal comments on social media are his alone and he does not speak for Neuberger Berman,” he added.
“Even though Mr Eisman has acknowledged that he mistook the content of the post he responded to, his actions on social media were irresponsible and objectionable.”
Mr Eisman, 62, joined the company in 2014.
A Harvard lawyer by training, Mr Eisman switched to become a financial analyst at Wall Street investment bank Oppenheimer. He then moved to the Connecticut-based hedge fund FrontPoint Partners. He left FrontPoint in 2011 and set up his own fund, Emrys Partners, the following year.
He joined Neuberger after Emrys closed. The investment company currently has $481 billion of assets under management with 739 employees, according to its website.
Mr Eisman has taken a strong pro-Israel stance on X.
Earlier this week, he said that if Kamala Harris won the US presidential election and the Democrats took control of both houses of Congress, he expected the US market to go “straight down”. He has predicted that Donald Trump will win the election in November.
However, on Thursday, in a Bloomberg Television interview, he rescinded his prediction, saying he now sees the race as “a toss-up”.
With inputs from Bloomberg and Reuters
Panipat
Director Ashutosh Gowariker
Produced Ashutosh Gowariker, Rohit Shelatkar, Reliance Entertainment
Cast Arjun Kapoor, Sanjay Dutt, Kriti Sanon, Mohnish Behl, Padmini Kolhapure, Zeenat Aman
Rating 3 /5 stars
Company Profile:
Name: The Protein Bakeshop
Date of start: 2013
Founders: Rashi Chowdhary and Saad Umerani
Based: Dubai
Size, number of employees: 12
Funding/investors: $400,000 (2018)
Nepotism is the name of the game
Salman Khan’s father, Salim Khan, is one of Bollywood’s most legendary screenwriters. Through his partnership with co-writer Javed Akhtar, Salim is credited with having paved the path for the Indian film industry’s blockbuster format in the 1970s. Something his son now rules the roost of. More importantly, the Salim-Javed duo also created the persona of the “angry young man” for Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan in the 1970s, reflecting the angst of the average Indian. In choosing to be the ordinary man’s “hero” as opposed to a thespian in new Bollywood, Salman Khan remains tightly linked to his father’s oeuvre. Thanks dad.
Tax authority targets shisha levy evasion
The Federal Tax Authority will track shisha imports with electronic markers to protect customers and ensure levies have been paid.
Khalid Ali Al Bustani, director of the tax authority, on Sunday said the move is to "prevent tax evasion and support the authority’s tax collection efforts".
The scheme’s first phase, which came into effect on 1st January, 2019, covers all types of imported and domestically produced and distributed cigarettes. As of May 1, importing any type of cigarettes without the digital marks will be prohibited.
He said the latest phase will see imported and locally produced shisha tobacco tracked by the final quarter of this year.
"The FTA also maintains ongoing communication with concerned companies, to help them adapt their systems to meet our requirements and coordinate between all parties involved," he said.
As with cigarettes, shisha was hit with a 100 per cent tax in October 2017, though manufacturers and cafes absorbed some of the costs to prevent prices doubling.
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Pakistan T20 series squad
Sarfraz Ahmed (captain), Fakhar Zaman, Ahmed Shahzad, Babar Azam, Shoaib Malik, Mohammed Hafeez, Imad Wasim, Shadab Khan, Mohammed Nawaz, Faheem Ashraf, Hasan Ali, Amir Yamin, Mohammed Amir (subject to fitness clearance), Rumman Raees, Usman Shinwari, Umar Amin
The more serious side of specialty coffee
While the taste of beans and freshness of roast is paramount to the specialty coffee scene, so is sustainability and workers’ rights.
The bulk of genuine specialty coffee companies aim to improve on these elements in every stage of production via direct relationships with farmers. For instance, Mokha 1450 on Al Wasl Road strives to work predominantly with women-owned and -operated coffee organisations, including female farmers in the Sabree mountains of Yemen.
Because, as the boutique’s owner, Garfield Kerr, points out: “women represent over 90 per cent of the coffee value chain, but are woefully underrepresented in less than 10 per cent of ownership and management throughout the global coffee industry.”
One of the UAE’s largest suppliers of green (meaning not-yet-roasted) beans, Raw Coffee, is a founding member of the Partnership of Gender Equity, which aims to empower female coffee farmers and harvesters.
Also, globally, many companies have found the perfect way to recycle old coffee grounds: they create the perfect fertile soil in which to grow mushrooms.
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WHAT IS A BLACK HOLE?
1. Black holes are objects whose gravity is so strong not even light can escape their pull
2. They can be created when massive stars collapse under their own weight
3. Large black holes can also be formed when smaller ones collide and merge
4. The biggest black holes lurk at the centre of many galaxies, including our own
5. Astronomers believe that when the universe was very young, black holes affected how galaxies formed
