Louis Bacon rewarded for his conservational efforts

Philanthropist Louis Bacon and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie have been awarded the Chairman’s Leadership Award by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.

Their on-going dedication has contributed significantly to the protection of landscapes and ecosystems at risk of destruction and has been officially recognised with the most prestigious accolade given out by the Foundation as part of its tenth annual benefit.

Presidents Ronald Regan and Jimmy Carter have been awarded with the same honour in the past and Bacon whole-heartedly deserves it too. To date, the Moore Charitable Foundation has given its support to over 200 nonprofit governmental organisations, including NFWF, for over 20 years.

Bacon’s charitable foundation, together with its Bahamas affiliate foundation, directs its efforts towards other causes aside from conservation. These include contributions to educational, medical and historical organisations in the Bahamas.

Through a grant given to the Bahamas Reef Environment Education Foundation (BREEF), time will be spent ensuring that programmes for teachers and students with “in-the-classroom” and “in-the-water experiences” with a long term aim of increasing much needed awareness with regard to environmental concerns.

The generosity of organisations such as NFWF, that channel public conservation dollars to environmental issues of paramount importance and even promise to match investments with private contributions deserve as much support as they can get.

Currently supporting the BNT’s “Conchservation” project, which aims to protect the Bahamian conch population, a most treasured part of their culinary culture, Bacon’s charity work is showing no sign of slowing down.

Described as “one of the best friends the conservation movement has ever had” by Paul Tudor Jones founder of Tudor Investment Corporation, Bacon has set a true example that other successful hedge fund managers really ought to follow. Future generations will suffer if we don’t change the way we live our lives and it is investments and efforts made by individuals like Bacon and Christie that can affect substantial change.

Louis Bacon hailed critical to Alaskan fund

Louis Bacon is to become one of the cornerstones of a new oil investment project in Alaska. Alaska's sovereign wealth fund has invested hundreds of millions of pounds into the project which in marks a return to the London stock market for Lord Browne, the former BP chief.

The Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation invests on behalf of the public in the area and has named Riverstone Holdings, a renewable energy assets firm, as another crucial partner.

It is estimated that Louis Bacon will invest heavily into the fund which is expected to raise investment between £135m and £250m in return for a stake of up to 27%. Other investors include Hunt Oil, a group headed by Ray L Hunt, a Texan oil tycoon.

The listing is expected to be launched on September 23 and could see Riverstone Holdings raise between £500m and £1bn, according to bankers.

The listing will provide Riverstone with a potentially open-ended supply of funding to conclude deals as investors pour money into opportunities triggered by the US shale oil and gas boom.

Louis Bacon, whose hedge fund Moore Capital is one of the largest on Wall Street, will also sit on the board with a number of directors with links to Goldman Sachs, which alongside JP Morgan is preparing the Riverstone Energy flotation.

Coupled with Louis Bacon’s financial expertise and his environmental interests through his charity, the Moore Charitable Foundation, it makes the hedge fund manager uniquely placed to provide advice on a wide range of issues within the investment.

Louis Bacon inspires other investment specialists to protect environment

Guests were gathered recently at the fourth Peconic Baykeeper’s annual Celebration of Our Bays event held at Port of Missing Men.

Louis Bacon has a long history of preservation efforts in the area, working to preserve the crucial unpolluted waters.

The land across the water, Cow Neck: is an area of 540 undeveloped acres (218 hectares) conserved by the Peconic Land Trust as a gift by Louis Bacon.

The preservation efforts have been made over a six year period and now the water is fishable, drinkable and swimmable waters which no longer make people ill from toxic contaminants.

The event had many esteemed guests in attendance from the world of finance and conservation including Chris Brady Jr., who works in venture capital and mobile start-ups in New York, said he’s involved in protecting Clifton Bay in the Bahamas, where the water is overrun with lionfish. His role model is a man his father has known since college.

Brady went on to say: “Louis Bacon is a huge inspiration to me.”

Other guests included Steven Klinsky, founder of New Mountain Capital LLC, George Brokaw, managing director Highbridge Principal Strategies Growth Equity, and John Wambold, managing director at Imperial Capital LLC, who recalled hunting pheasant on Cow Neck.

As well as Scott Lindsay, global head of mergers and acquisitions at Credit Suisse AG (CSGN), and Susan Dunne, wife of Jim Dunne, co-founder of Sandler O’Neill & Partners LP.

The relationship between wealth and philanthropy has become increasingly important over recent years as successful people like Louis Bacon look for ways to fulfil their social responsibility.

It is clear that Louis Bacon’s actions have inspired others from the business world to take a more active role in caring for the environment and preserving rare habitats and creatures for future generations by using their wealth for good.

Louis Bacon named as one of Long Island’s wealthiest in rich list

Hedge Fund manager Louis Bacon has been named among only four Long Islanders to make the annual Forbes list of wealthiest Americans.

After another successful year for Bacon’s Moore Capital Management LP, which made an impressive return of 13.5 for the first two quarters this year, the fund manager is now worth an estimated $1.4billion.

This means that Louis Bacon managed to increase his personal fortune by $100 million over the last twelve months and has been more active than ever in his environmental projects.

Recently his focus has been preserving Peconic Bay's Robins Island for which, the usually camera shy philanthropist, has been covered extensively in the media.

Another successful fund manager from Long Island was James Simons, an East Setauket resident whose hedge fund applies mathematical models to financial investing.

He is top of the Long Island rich list with a net worth of $12 billion. Simons, 75, came out at number 34 overall after his worth rose by $1 billion.

Cablevision's Charles Dolan (and family) was included on the list, as was investment banker Kenneth Langone.

A former Long Island resident, Ira Rennert, a bond trader renowned for his Sagaponack home, one of the largest in America, was still noted by

According to the report, the wealthiest people became even wealthier as the combined worth of the list exceeded the value of previous years.

Louis Bacon’s presence on the list is notable as he has spent more effort concerting and arranging his environmental work than he has in the past.

By using his wealth to benefit worthy causes, it means the growth in Louis Bacon’s wealth has a direct correlation with the amount of good work he can do in conservation.

Over the past few years, Bacon has been responsible for several of the largest conservation projects in the country as well as work carried out in the Bahamas.

Louis Bacon thanked by Mayor of New York

Louis Bacon and his colleague Ann Colley have been personally thanked by the Mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg.

Congratulating Bacon as a notable conservationist, Mayor Bloomberg spoke at the Jamaica Bay Science and Resilience Institute launch on 13 August 2013 about the work of the private sector to help protect the local environment.

Mayor Bloomberg said: “We would like to thank the private sector and philanthropic partners whose generosity is helping make those efforts possible, and that includes Louis Bacon and Ann Colley of Moore Charitable [Foundation].”

Jamaica Bay is an area that was completely ruined by Hurricane Sandy in 2012, and the vast bay has had to come under protection to preserve its wetlands and natural woodland. The Science and Resilience Institute has been designed to research how to better protect the area, with a combination of research institutions and not-for-profit organisations teaming up to take part.

Prestigious groups involved include the Rockefeller Foundation, the National Park Service, the Secunda Family Foundation, National Grid and environment philanthropist Louis Bacon. The City University of New York will be at the head of the new institute, with significant involvement from Cornell, Columbia and Rutgers universities.

Louis Bacon has had much involvement in the  New York area with regard to conservation, having purchased Robins Island (part of Long Island) through an easement with the aim of restoring its natural habitats and waterways. He also purchased Cow Neck Farm in Long Island and donated the easement to the Peconic Land Trust, halting any development plans that may have damaged the land.

The acknowledgement by the Mayor of New York came only a few scant days after another pillar of the New York preservation community, the Peconic Land Trust, recognised Louis Bacon for his work towards conserving Long Island’s endangered working farms and natural land.

2013 has been a year of recognition for Louis Bacon and his various charitable foundations. In January 2013, he had the honour of being added to the recipients of the Audubon Medal, as an acknowledgement of his life-long achievements in conservation. A few months later, Forbes listed him as one of the greenest billionaires in the world.

Louis Bacon hailed as donation hero in the Huffington Post

Louis Bacon was given as a prime example of a land donator in the Huffington Post’s story on ten unusual methods of donating funds, time and money.

The article discussed some of the more unusual ways of providing charity, and land donation was one of their recommendations. Citing Forbes’ report of Louis Bacon donating 90,000 acres of Colorado land to form the Sangre de Cristo Conservation Area, the article highlighted his conservation efforts as an example.

It stated that: “Like Mr. Bacon, you too might be sitting on a valuable piece of land, and many organizations are now accepting land donations. Although most properties aren't large enough to be turned into conservatories, why not send a few acres to a charity like The Nature Conservancy.”

The article described the nature of Louis Bacon’s donation as the “largest single conservation easement given to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service”, as told by the United States’ Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar. The donation, it said, “will help to preserve a southern portion of the state that includes mountain grasslands, alpine forests and some of the state's highest peaks.”

Louis Bacon donated the land as part of his campaign to help save the environment. The gift was made through his company Moore Capital Management’ Moore Charitable Foundation. The group has been operating since 1992, and embodies Louis Bacon’s dedication to the natural world and its inhabitants. Other areas that his Foundation aids are the conservation efforts on Robins Island, Long Island; and the Orton Plantation in North Carolina.

Other methods that the article suggested were donating air miles to charities such as Mileage, which helps aid services in areas such as Haiti; giving cars through a charitable auction; tweeting about a campaign, through prescribed services such as Donate Your Account; organ donation, living and through signing up through organ donation; reproductive donation, such as eggs, sperm and embryos; donating hair to groups such as Wigs for Kids; giving old cell phones to soldiers; copyright forfeiting, for those with a helpful invention; and giving a percentage of your money spent whilst shopping online.

Louis Bacon: A life well spent on conservation

It has been just over 57 years since Louis Bacon entered the world, and those 57 years have led to many great accolades for conservation work.

Forbes named him as one of the ten greenest billionaires in the world this April. In January, he was awarded the Audubon Society’s top accolade, the Audubon medal, which has been given to the likes of Walt Disney, the Rockefeller family, Jimmy Carter and Ted Turner.

Just this month, he was recognised yet again, with the Peconic Land Trust honouring him in a ceremony on the 4^th of August. He was thanked for his efforts towards the protection of the natural lands on Long Island, with the non-profit organisation honouring the “conservation legacy of the Louis Bacon family.” The group added: “Through the Moore Charitable Foundation and affiliates, Bacon's conservation support has stretched from Colorado to crystal clear waters of the islands and ranges from protecting critical landscapes to preserving coral reefs in a fragile marine environment.”

Bacon’s efforts have rightfully been noted by leading organisations, but his passion for the environment is not for the fame. Since early childhood, he has aimed to be in a position to protect the natural world.

The Mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg, put it best. He stated: "Raised as an avid outdoorsman, even as a young man Louis developed a reverence for the natural world. His lifelong passion for land and water conservation has benefitted many communities where his conservation efforts have made a real difference to those who live, work and vacation in those places, including here in New York.”

Born in North Carolina – where the main focus of his conservation has been – Louis Bacon worked his way through degrees in American Literature and Finance, before becoming involved in the banking industry as a broker and trader. His key financial achievement was to found Moore Capital Management.

This progression allowed Bacon to follow his dream of creating a charitable foundation in 1992, The Moore Charitable Foundation. Its aim is to provide financial backing for non-profit organisations which focus on the habitats of wildlife, especially within water systems.

His work on the environmental front has been in the making for many years, and will surely continue for many more to come.