Cohen the Barbarian - the Sequel

4 June 2009 By Rob Cox Follow @rob1cox

The man who advised RJR Nabisco to go private 20 years ago is going public by backing his investment firm Ramius into listed broker Cowen. Though the former Shearson chief and Weill acolyte doesn t plan to build another Citi, he still has ambition, and timing, on his side.

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Publicly listed US brokerage Cowen Group agreed to be acquired by Ramius LLC in a deal that will make the money management firm founded by former Shearson executive Peter Cohen a public company.

Ramius, which oversees some $7.7bn in alternative assets, will own 71% of the new company, or 37.54m shares. Unicredit, an investor in Ramius, will own 2.1m shares. Cowen shareholders will hold the remainder of the equity.

Cowen was spun off by Societe Generale a few years ago. Cohen will become chairman and chief executive of the company. He founded Ramius to manage his own personal wealth after leaving Shearson Lehman Hutton, the American Expressowned investment bank that backed F. Ross Johnson's failed attempt to take RJR Nabisco, the company he ran, private in 1989.

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