David Tepper

Born in 1957 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Tepper earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Pittsburgh and an MBA from Carnegie Mellon University's Tepper School of Business (now bearing his name after a $67 million donation). He worked at Goldman Sachs as a credit analyst, eventually becoming head of high yield trading. Goldman passed over Tepper for partnership twice despite his exceptional performance managing distressed debt during the savings and loan crisis of the late 1980s. He left Goldman in 1992 to found Appaloosa Management in Short Hills, New Jersey with $57 million from a handful of Goldman colleagues. Appaloosa specializes in distressed debt and high yield securities, taking concentrated positions when Tepper identifies compelling value in stressed or distressed situations. The fund generated enormous returns through the 2002 telecom debt crisis and the 2009 financial crisis. In 2009, Tepper made what many consider one of the greatest trades in hedge fund history. He aggressively purchased distressed bank bonds and preferred equity — particularly from Citigroup and Bank of America — at deeply depressed prices when many investors feared government nationalization. When the Obama administration chose bailouts over nationalization, the securities soared. Appaloosa generated approximately $7 billion in profit that year, with Tepper personally earning over $4 billion — the largest one-year payday in hedge fund history at the time. Tepper purchased the NFL's Carolina Panthers in 2018 for $2.275 billion, making him the first active hedge fund manager to own an NFL team.