Employees at Paul Singer’s (above) Elliott Management are the largest single contributor to Florida Senate candidate Connie Mack. (Bloomberg)
This week’s Republican convention has proved to be the political coming-out party for hedge-fund heavyweight Paul Singer and his $19.8 billion Elliott Management.
Employees of the firm, including Singer, have given more than $3.7 million to a wide swath of Republican candidates this year.
Singer gave $1 million to Mitt Romney’s SuperPAC alone.
The arch-conservative hedgie’s fingerprints are all over the convention, with his favored players — Chris Christie, the tough-talking New Jersey governor who gave the keynote address Tuesday night, and Paul Ryan, the vice presidential candidate — playing key roles.
But there is another, lesser-known convention speaker with close ties to Singer: Connie Mack, a Florida congressman who is running for the Senate against incumbent Bill Nelson. Mack is scheduled to speak tonight, right before a video of Ronald Reagan.
Singer and his employees have been a top contributor to 23 Republicans running for Congress, but few received more money than Mack.
Elliott Management employees are Mack’s top financial backer, giving a total of $38,413, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
Mack is close to Singer in another way. Several months before he announced his Senate candidacy, Mack was the leading sponsor of a bill designed to pressure Argentina to pay Elliott $2 billion that the hedge fund claims it is owed.
The two parties have been in court for almost a decade now regarding defaulted Argentina debt that Elliott bought in the secondary market.
Similar bills have been introduced in two prior Congressional sessions but have never made it out of committee.
It’s highly unusual for legislation to single out a single country and its dispute with private creditors, according to Congressional sources.
Singer declined to comment. Mack could not be reached.