Page 32

Steinhardt is devoted to perpetuating the Jewish population—keeping American Jews Jewish. One of his main preoccupations is Makor (the Hebrew word for source), a cultural center on the West Side of New York where single Jewish people meet. In early February 2001, Steinhardt donated it to the 92nd Street Y.

Steinhardt has been the chairman of the investment committee at New York University since 1996. He says that despite the endowment having a history of being anti-stocks, it has made some movement to equities and has even made some hedge fund investments.

Odyssey Partners

Odyssey Partners, with assets of $3 billion, returned money to clients in February 1997 and closed at the end of 1997. Partners Leon Levy and Jack Nash said they had difficulties managing and investing such a huge pool of assets.54 They had generated an average annual return of about 28 percent since inception in 1982. When they retired, Leon Levy, who had been the macro visionary of the team, was 71, and Jack Nash, who had been the trader, was 67.

The two had met at Oppenheimer & Co. in the 1950s. Nash, who became chairman of Oppenheimer, was a pioneer in leveraged buyouts. Levy was a partner, director of research, and served as chairman of the board of the Oppenheimer group of mutual funds. In 1982, Oppenheimer was sold; that year, the duo formed Odyssey Partners with $160 million, which included $50 million they received from selling Oppenheimer. The private deal-making business became the core business for Odyssey.

Levy and Nash and their families had about $480 million invested in Odyssey Partners.