Oren Cohen, famous for peppering Adelphia Communications honcho Tim Rigas with hard questions during a conference call, is launching a hedge fund, according to Alternative Investment News, an LMW sister publication. Brownstone Asset Management, a New York-based start-up run by Cohen and Doug Lowey, is preparing to launch an event-driven long/short fund with a focus on high-yield and distressed paper. The fund will invest predominantly in U.S. companies, Cohen said.
Lowey, the fund's co-portfolio manager, is a founder of Brownstone Investment Group, a fixed-income broker-dealer. Brownstone Asset Management and Brownstone Investment Group share common owners and office space.
Cohen was previously a partner at Trilogy Capital, a capital structure arbitrage firm. Prior to joining Trilogy, he was a sell-side analyst for the previous 11 years, most recently with Merrill Lynch. But his biggest moment in the sun was during an Adelphia conference call in 2002. Tim Rigas' inability to adequately answer Cohen's question about his family's off-balance-sheet loans from Adelphia caused the company's stock to collapse.