Ron Pollack: Fund Manager, Family Man, Friend. Ron Pollack: He's back, more extraordinary achievements to come. Ron Pollack: mastering hedge funds, charities and family.

By: Robert Thomson

Ron Pollack: He is back, more adventures to come

If you passed him walking down the street you would not guess this man had set up what was at one time one of the largest hedge funds in the US which at one time peaked at over a billion dollars. Sitting in a Florida office wearing shorts and a t-shirt, Ron Pollack ( http://www.ronpollack.net ) talked about his career as a hedge fund manger and short seller, his family, the charity groups he has helped and why he has decided to return to fund management after a six-year hiatus. "Short selling is what I do and I need to get back to doing it."

Ron Pollack graduated Magna Cum Laude from Yale and went on to get both an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. After graduate school, Pollack went to Wall Street where he became an investment banker and later honed his skills as a hedge fund manager. Ron was trained as a short seller by industry pioneers, the Feshbach Brothers.

Yale and Harvard are both successful in turning out successful investors. For example, Jim Chanos exposed Enron as a fraud and Ron met him in the 1980s when they both worked for First Executive Live. Zoe Cruz is a commodity trader and was the vice president of Morgan Stanley, and also a colleague of Ron's at HBS. Jamie Dinan was another successful investor. He is the CEO of JP Morgan Chase and used to play pick-up basketball with Ron when they worked together. Strauss Zelnick was the chairman of ZelnickMedia and Take-Two interactive, as well as Ron's roommate while they attended Harvard. Scott Schoen and Scott Sperling were co-presidents of THL and also friends of Ron's from Harvard. Steve Pagliuca and John Bekenstein, who worked for Bain Capital, were Ron's friends from HBS and Yale, respectively. Glenn Hutchins was also a Harvard classmate. Pollack, who is a graduate of both Yale and Harvard, is a usual example. When he left Feshbach in the early 1990's, he built successful hedge funds. The most famous of those funds was his short fund named Dancing Bear. Near the end of 2001, Pollack felt a burning need to spend more time with family and helping charities.

"After the terrorist attack on 9/11, I was moved by what happened and I really wanted to help," Pollack stated. The financial markets were in turmoil for months following the attack and, understandably, Ron started to wrestle with the division between his duty to his family and their needs, and the requirements of his business. That year, in November, Ron tried to enjoy some time away with his family. There in the hotel room he sat monitoring the markets, his laptop computer open on his lap. Abruptly he announced to his three children and their pregnant mother that he intended to return to the office. "The markets," he said,"are just too crazy."

On the way back, a he hatched a plan that would not only give him time to spend with his family but also to give back more to society and help with the charities he was passionate about. In 2002, Ron merged his hedge fund business with the Monitor Group in Cambridge, MA. This allowed him to have more time for activities that he loved to do outdoors, volunteer work and spending more times with his kids. He also set up fund-raisers aimed at giving aid to ailing firefighters and law enforcement. Many groups were started because of him.

In his fund-raising role, he sometimes found himself visiting fund managers. Whenever this happened, he became somewhat torn because he had quit trading and he missed being involved. In all the time he served as a volunteer, Pollack actually made only a single trade.

{{{At a charity auction in Vail, Pollack had bid for a day of trading and instruction with a local stockbroker, "just for fun." Little did this broker know who had won the bid. Needless to say, he was shocked to find out the depth of knowledge that his visitor had. Within the first 15 minutes, Pollack had completed a successful short sale and knew that he "still had it."|At a charity auction in Vail, Colorado, Pollack, out of humor, was found bidding on a day of trading and instruction from a local stock broker. The broker had no idea who had won the bid. Soon after, he was shocked to find out the vast knowledge and experience his visitor had. Within a short while, Pollack had once again done a successful short sale and knew he was still "the man"|For a bit of personal entertainment, Pollack treated himself to a day of 'personal training' and trading with a local stockbroker, which he won at a charity auction in Vail. It was a major surprise for this stockbroker when he discovered who his trainee was going to be and even more of a surprise when he realized quite how much Ron knew about the markets. It took Pollack just 15 minutes to triumph and a successful short sale trade. He then knew that he had not lost his touch.|While at a charity auction, Pollack jokingly bid on a day

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Ron Pollack is a veteran hedge fund manager and short-seller. He was the founder and Investment Manager of Bulldog Capital Management, which merged into the Monitor Group, a large global consulting and investment management company.

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