(Bloomberg) — Bayshore Global, the family office for Google co-founder Sergey Brin, made Marie Young chief investment officer, elevating the former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. analyst to a position helping oversee the fortune of one of the world’s most influential billionaires.
Young, 35, joined the Silicon Valley firm about a decade ago from Goldman Sachs and served as deputy CIO for the prior two years, according to her LinkedIn profile. Young and a Bayshore representative didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Brin, 48, has a net worth of $111.1 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, primarily thanks to his 6% stake in Alphabet Inc. worth about $97 billion. For years, he held onto the stock, but sold more than $500 million last year, the most since 2016.
Bayshore helps manage the fortune of the world’s seventh richest person from Los Altos, California. It doesn’t have a website and few details have emerged about its investments.
Read more: How New Wealth, Few Rules Fuel Family Office Boom: QuickTake
Started in 2005, the office is named after a section of Mountain View, California, where Google is headquartered.
Over the years, it has employed a Navy Seal for security, a yacht captain, an archivist and an estate manager. Alongside looking after the lifestyle of Brin and his family, Bayshore also invests in equities, commercial real estate and private equity, according to LinkedIn profiles of employees, who often say they work for an unnamed private family office.
Read more: Inside a Billionaire’s Family Office: Navy Seals, Yacht Captains
One of its early hires was Rob Fetherstonhaugh, a long-time adviser to wealthy families who oversaw investments and helped set up the Brin Wojcicki Foundation. Brin and Anne Wojcicki divorced in 2015, and he’s since married Nicole Shanahan. Fetherstonhaugh has moved on to help run Belvoir Investments Corp. for Canada’s Desmarais family.
Bayshore opened an outpost in Singapore in late 2020, with Young listed as the director. In December, it added Hemant Mandal to make climate-change investments such as renewables and transition technologies, his LinkedIn profile shows. Mandal, who previously worked for the International Finance Corp., didn’t return messages for comment.
George Pavlov, a former venture capital executive, is the current chief executive officer overseeing Bayshore, including its philanthropy. At the 2019 Milken Institute Global Conference, he indicated some of its priorities, such as neurodegenerative diseases and criminal justice reform.
Part of our role is to “take more risk than government is willing to take and invest in things earlier than most people would be, knowing that there’s a strong probability you’re going to lose your money,” he said during a panel discussion.
The Sergey Brin Family Foundation had more than $2.5 billion in assets at the end of 2019, with a big portion of that Alphabet stock, according to filings. It also invested in hedge funds and private equity.
While family offices have long been used by dynastic clans in Europe and North America, Bayshore took shape as a wave of vast new fortunes sprung up from Silicon Valley, Wall Street and China.
There are now thousands in operation, ranging from those employing just a handful of people to highly sophisticated operations.
Mousse Partners, which oversees the fortune behind Chanel, has invested in venture funds and private equity. Blue Pool Capital, oversees money for the Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.’s founders and recently paid $188 million for a New York penthouse, while Soros Fund Management oversees $28 billion in net assets.
“Family offices have surged in number over the past two decades alongside the rise in ultra-high net worth individuals,” said Rebecca Gooch, senior director of research at Campden Wealth in London. “As the wealth management vehicle of choice for the affluent, family offices have rose to prominence due to their proven ability to preserve and grow wealth for current and future generations.”
(Adds family office details in penultimate paragraph)
TORONTO – Canada’s main stock index was higher in late-morning trading, helped by strength in energy stocks, while U.S. stock markets also moved up.
The S&P/TSX composite index was up 34.91 points at 23,736.98.
In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 178.05 points at 41,800.13. The S&P 500 index was up 28.38 points at 5,661.47, while the Nasdaq composite was up 133.17 points at 17,725.30.
The Canadian dollar traded for 73.56 cents US compared with 73.57 cents US on Monday.
The November crude oil contract was up 68 cents at US$69.70 per barrel and the October natural gas contract was up three cents at US$2.40 per mmBTU.
The December gold contract was down US$7.80 at US$2,601.10 an ounce and the December copper contract was up a penny at US$4.28 a pound.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17, 2024.
TORONTO – Strength in the base metal and technology sectors helped Canada’s main stock index gain almost 100 points on Friday, while U.S. stock markets climbed to their best week of the year.
“It’s been almost a complete opposite or retracement of what we saw last week,” said Philip Petursson, chief investment strategist at IG Wealth Management.
In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 297.01 points at 41,393.78. The S&P 500 index was up 30.26 points at 5,626.02, while the Nasdaq composite was up 114.30 points at 17,683.98.
The S&P/TSX composite index closed up 93.51 points at 23,568.65.
While last week saw a “healthy” pullback on weaker economic data, this week investors appeared to be buying the dip and hoping the central bank “comes to the rescue,” said Petursson.
Next week, the U.S. Federal Reserve is widely expected to cut its key interest rate for the first time in several years after it significantly hiked it to fight inflation.
But the magnitude of that first cut has been the subject of debate, and the market appears split on whether the cut will be a quarter of a percentage point or a larger half-point reduction.
Petursson thinks it’s clear the smaller cut is coming. Economic data recently hasn’t been great, but it hasn’t been that bad either, he said — and inflation may have come down significantly, but it’s not defeated just yet.
“I think they’re going to be very steady,” he said, with one small cut at each of their three decisions scheduled for the rest of 2024, and more into 2025.
“I don’t think there’s a sense of urgency on the part of the Fed that they have to do something immediately.
A larger cut could also send the wrong message to the markets, added Petursson: that the Fed made a mistake in waiting this long to cut, or that it’s seeing concerning signs in the economy.
It would also be “counter to what they’ve signaled,” he said.
More important than the cut — other than the new tone it sets — will be what Fed chair Jerome Powell has to say, according to Petursson.
“That’s going to be more important than the size of the cut itself,” he said.
In Canada, where the central bank has already cut three times, Petursson expects two more before the year is through.
“Here, the labour situation is worse than what we see in the United States,” he said.
The Canadian dollar traded for 73.61 cents US compared with 73.58 cents US on Thursday.
The October crude oil contract was down 32 cents at US$68.65 per barrel and the October natural gas contract was down five cents at US$2.31 per mmBTU.
The December gold contract was up US$30.10 at US$2,610.70 an ounce and the December copper contract was up four cents US$4.24 a pound.
— With files from The Associated Press
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
TORONTO – Canada’s main stock index was down more than 200 points in late-morning trading, weighed down by losses in the technology, base metal and energy sectors, while U.S. stock markets also fell.
The S&P/TSX composite index was down 239.24 points at 22,749.04.
In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 312.36 points at 40,443.39. The S&P 500 index was down 80.94 points at 5,422.47, while the Nasdaq composite was down 380.17 points at 16,747.49.
The Canadian dollar traded for 73.80 cents US compared with 74.00 cents US on Thursday.
The October crude oil contract was down US$1.07 at US$68.08 per barrel and the October natural gas contract was up less than a penny at US$2.26 per mmBTU.
The December gold contract was down US$2.10 at US$2,541.00 an ounce and the December copper contract was down four cents at US$4.10 a pound.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 6, 2024.
