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Christopher Tsai | |
|---|---|
| Born | December 20, 1974 |
| Education | Middlebury College |
| Occupation | Chief Investment Officer |
| Employer | Tsai Capital |
| Known for | President of Tsai Capital |
| Spouse | André Stockamp[1] |
Christopher Tsai is a Chinese-American businessman and art collector. He is currently the President and Chief Investment Officer of Tsai Capital Corporation, a New York-based investment management firm he founded in 1997 at the age of 22. Tsai is also an avid art collector and known for having the world's largest collection of works by Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei.[2]
Early life and education
[edit]Tsai was born in the United States in 1974 to Gerald Tsai, a billionaire investor and philanthropist credited with building Fidelity Investments' mutual fund portfolio.[3] He was exposed to finance at an early age, analyzing investment opportunities with his father for the family and its foundation. When he was 11 years of age, he purchased shares of an insurance company that made him a $25 profit, hooking him on finance and investing.[4] Tsai would read The Wall Street Journal and Value Line to help educate himself. Tsai attended Middlebury College where he majored in Philosophy and International Politics, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree.[3][5]
Career
[edit]Tsai began his career early at the age of 16, investing $400,000 that was entrusted to him from a family friend and restaurateur.[6] He used the capital from his profit along with additional capital from family to start his own hedge fund at the age of 22, a fund that would later become Tsai Capital.[6] Operating as an SEC-registered investment adviser, the company is a long/short equity hedge fund. Tsai is the President and Chief Investment Officer of the company and also serves as Chairperson of the company's advisory committee.[5]
Tsai credits his investment philosophies to a fishing trip with his father in which the elder Tsai told him, “You can't do that. You have to have the wind behind you just like in investing. You want to position yourself with the wind at your back,” a lesson that he states has stuck with him today.[6] He also attributes the works of Benjamin Graham such as The Intelligent Investor and Philip Arthur Fisher’s Common Stocks And Uncommon Profits as influences on his trading philosophies.[6]
As part of his work in the financial industry, he has been consulted by media outlets including The New York Post and Bloomberg Businessweek to opine on various financial topics.[7][8] Issues he has spoken on include the purchasing power of the Asian middle-class which has increased due to population growth.[9][7] Tsai began a new venture in 2014 when he launched the venture capital firm Tsai Ventures, the investment arm of Tsai Capital that invests seed and early stage funding for new companies.[6]
Art collection
[edit]Tsai is also known as an avid art collector.[2] He began by collecting contemporary Chinese art which he accurately predicted would rise in value.[2] He is also the biggest collector in the world of pieces by Ai Weiwei. Tsai's collection of pieces by Weiwei outgrew his Manhattan apartment and he reached out to Weiwei to design a house in upstate New York that would hold his large collection.[10] The house itself has been nominated for awards including the International Architecture Awards.[11] Tsai eventually sold the house, but announced that he plans to build a museum in the honor of Weiwei,[1] with whom he still has a personal relationship with.[5] He attributes his love of art to his father who collected early pieces of works by both Alexander Calder and Joan Mitchell.[2] Tsai also contributes artwork to museum exhibitions, including at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.[12] Pieces that he has exhibited include works by Cai Guo-Qiang, part of the Stockamp Tsai Collection.[10]
Philanthropy
[edit]Tsai is a benefactor of numerous nonprofit organizations, both domestically and internationally. These organizations include the World Monuments Fund in which he is a member of the President’s Circle, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Serpentine Galleries and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.[13]
Personal life
[edit]In addition to Tsai being the son of a former billionaire investor and mutual fund manager, his grandmother Ruth Tsai was a pioneer for women in Shanghai.[6] She was the only woman to trade on the stock floor of the Shanghai Stock Exchange during World War II.[6] Tsai is married to André Stockamp, making up the other half of the "Stockamp Tsai Collection."[1]
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ a b c Gerlis, Melanie (14 May 2014). "Collector wants to open first Ai Weiwei museum". The Art Newspaper. Retrieved 5 December 2014.
- ^ a b c d Rao, Mallika (11 July 2014). "The Ai Weiwei Museum of All of Our Dreams is Coming". The Huffington Post. Retrieved 5 December 2014.
- ^ a b Martin, Neil A. (23 August 2014). "Not Hist Father's Style". Barrons. Retrieved 5 December 2014.
- ^ Gupte, Pranay (20 July 2005). "TheTsai Method of Selection: Stick to the Fundamentals". The New York Sun. Retrieved 5 December 2014.
- ^ a b c Elliot, Hannah (30 June 2014). "At Home With The World's Biggest Ai Weiwei Collector: 'He Is Still Vastly Undervalued'". Forbes Life. Retrieved 5 December 2014.
- ^ a b c d e f g La Roche, Julia (11 February 2014). "Meet The Hedge Funder Whose Finance Roots Date Back To The Shanghai Stock Exchange During WWII". The Business Insider. Retrieved 5 December 2014.
- ^ a b Massar, Carol; McKee, Michael (8 October 2014). "Taking Stock: Investing in Asia, FOMC Minutes". Bloomberg Businessweek. Retrieved 5 December 2014.
- ^ Byrne, John (9 November 2014). "The man who invests the money of the ultra-rich". The New York Post. Retrieved 5 December 2014.
- ^ Dennin, James (23 June 2014). "A long-term approach: Christopher Tsai on investing in Asia". Nasdaq.com. Retrieved 5 December 2014.
- ^ a b Bernstein, Fred A. (7 November 2008). "Global Summit". The New York Times. Retrieved 5 December 2014.
- ^ Sommers, Lary L. "German Architects Select 64 American Architecture Awards For The Best New U.S. Building and Urban Designs for 2009" (PDF). Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture and Design. Retrieved 5 December 2014.
- ^ "Ai Weiwei". ARTslant. Retrieved 5 December 2014.
- ^ "Ai WeiWei: According To What?". HirshHorn. Retrieved 5 December 2014.