Billionaire Pledges $325 Million to Help PTSD Veterans

Billionaire Investor Steven Cohen Pledges $325 Million to Combat PTSD in Vets
FORTUNE
by Jen Wieczner
SEPTEMBER 22, 2016,

Cohen said he plans to invest $325 million during a five year period in his two new initiatives to help veterans and prevent them from committing suicide, a recent phenomenon among vets that has alarmed policymakers.

His own son was a Marine.

Steven A. Cohen, the billionaire hedge fund manager whose former firm SAC Capital pled guilty to insider trading charges, rarely does speaking gigs. Always extremely private, the investor has hardly ever spoken publicly since the 2013 settlement.

But Cohen, who has since transformed his firm into a family office called Point72 that manages $11.6 billion of mostly his own money, broke his silence Thursday. The occasion was a special and deeply personal one to him: The kickoff of his inaugural Cohen Veterans Care Summit (or just “Cohen Cares,” as it’s called for short), a two-day meeting held in Washington, D.C. at the Ronald Reagan Building, a block away from the White House.

His speech led the convention of medical and policy experts focused on pursuing new research and breakthroughs for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and traumatic brain injuries, frequently seen among recent veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Inspired by his son Robert who served as a U.S. Marine, deploying to Afghanistan in 2010, Cohen has since stepped up his philanthropic efforts focused on the mental health of military veterans—particularly the 2.7 million who served in the “War on Terror” after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
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