President Barack Obama will return to New York on March 1 for a fundraiser with investment bankers and hedge fund managers, according to a campaign invitation, marking his first high-dollar event there since calling for increased taxes on the wealthy in his 2013 budget.
Hosts of the fundraiser, including Ralph Schlosstein, chief executive officer at Evercore Partners Inc., and his wife, Jane Hartley, co-founder of the economic and political advisory firm Observatory Group LLC, were assured last week by Jim Messina, Obama’s campaign manager, that the president would not demonize Wall Street in his re-election.
The $35,800-a-person dinner at ABC Kitchen, the first of the evening’s four fund-raising events, is being hosted by many of Obama’s top Wall Street donors, according to a person familiar with the matter. Sponsors include Blair W. Effron, partner and co-founder of Centerview Partners LLP; Marc Lasry, managing partner and founder of Avenue Capital Group; Mark Gallogly, a managing principal of Centerbridge Partners; James Rubin, managing director of BC Partners; Robert Wolf, UBS AG’s chairman for the Americas; and Antonio Weiss, global head of investment banking at Lazard Ltd.
Other co-hosts are not associated with the financial services industry, such as Tom Bernstein, president of Chelsea Piers LP; and Kevin Ryan; the chief executive officer of Gilt Groupe Inc.; and Sally Susman, an executive vice president of Pfizer Inc.
In Obama’s 2013 budget, he called for $1.4 trillion in new revenue over 10 years from Americans at the top of the income scale, proposing higher taxes on wages and investments and limiting itemized deductions. He would tax long-term capital gains at 20 percent, up from the current 15 percent, for individuals making more than $200,000 and families making more than $250,000.
Obama’s last fundraiser with the financial services industry was on Sept. 19 last year. So far this election cycle he has not been able to match the success he had four years ago in getting money from Wall Street.
He raised $16 million from employees in the securities and investment industry and their families for the 2008 election, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
This cycle’s numbers have been lower. JPMorgan Chase & Co., whose employees gave $23,494 to Obama in the last three months, was the only financial institution among Obama’s top 10 list of donors for the fourth quarter.
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