Tag Archives: Princeton Newport Partners

Jay Regan: the story behind the story

Business, Memoir, , ,
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Jay Regan

A few nuggets from Richard K. Rein’s fascinating story on Jay Regan, in the new issue of the Princeton Echo:

“A young man on Wall Street became interested in the work of a mathematician who had developed  a system for beating blackjack and was using that system to pick stocks that would outperform the market average. . . . Princeton Newport Partners became the first quantitative hedge fund.”

“Google his name (James S. ‘Jay’ Regan) and the first two words that might come up are ‘racketeering charges.’”

At the office on the corner of Witherspoon and Spring Street, “armed marshalls presented a search warrant to the startled receptionist. Regan first thought it was some college buddies playing a joke.”

“Even in the darkest days Regan maintained his sense of humor, even if it had a certain gallows cast to it.”

“the sentence was later overturned…. prosecutorial over-reach. The prosecutor, incidentally, was Rudolph Giuliani, even then political ambitious.”

“For all that he and his family went through, Regan remains a bright and cheerful soul, and as enthusiastic about his work as he must have been when he first got involved on Wall Street.”

My personal note to parents of liberal arts majors: Regan was a philosophy major.  

The Echo comes to the mailboxes of Princeton residents once a month and is available in newsboxes throughout town. On the cover: a story on card shark/mathematician Bradley Snider.

Photo of Jay Regan by Suzette Lucas. 

 

 

 

Rich and Reclusive on Spring Street

Around Town, Business, ,

Back in 1987, when U.S. 1 Newspaper was still a monthly and everyone on staff was also on the delivery team, my  route was downtown Princeton. I tried to deliver to Princeton Newport Partners at 33 Witherspoon, on the corner of Witherspoon and Spring Street. Later Spring Street would be publicly notorious in the scandal of Lyle and Eric Menendez, owners of Chuck’s Spring Street cafe. But the 33 Spring Street building would be quietly notorious as an address associated with Princeton Newport Partners, raided by the feds in 1987 for its possible involvement in the Michael Milken junk bond case. (The charges were later dropped, as explained by my boss Richard K. Rein in his column last week.)

But when I arrived at the Princeton Newport Partners office I didn’t know about the investigation. All I knew was that no one at that office wanted to talk to me. And for later visits the office was closed.

Venture capitalists, private investors, investment bankers — all are notoriously close mouthed, none more so than Andrew Shechtel. He apparently still has an office at 33 Witherspoon and is now listed as the third richest man in New Jersey. As reported by NJ Biz, and also by Zachary R. Mider in Bloomberg News,  Shechtel put $9.7 billion into two trusts . . .some of it going to camps for Jewish youth, most of it to a Forrestal Village-based foundation dedicated to research into Huntington’s disease.

Rein explains more, in his column this week. .