Steve Cohen ain’t going down easy.
In an act of stereotypical Wall Street trader chutzpah, hedge-fund billionaire Cohen promised employees that he won’t be closing his $15 billion SAC Capital to outside investors — despite massive withdrawals in the face of a federal insider trading probe.
In an e-mail to employees, SAC President Tom Conheeney also forecast no significant staff reductions, despite recent requests for redemptions of as much as $5.7 billion.
Conheeney, in his letter, said the Stamford, Conn., firm has enough stable money to continue despite the redemptions.
The Cohen confidant also said some investors have told SAC that they may reconsider their recent withdrawal requests once legal questions surrounding the firm, including a potential criminal indictment, are resolved.
SAC managed $6 billion in money for outside investors at the start of the year. Cohen personally has $7.5 billion invested with the firm; employees have about $1.5 billion invested, according to Bloomberg News, which first reported the Conheeney letter.
Meanwhile, 24 hours after SAC sought to reassure employees, Cohen’s long-time lawyer Martin Klotz was spotted by a reporter for The Post yesterday entering the US Attorney’s downtown offices at around 1:45 p.m.
Klotz, a litigation partner at Willkie Farr, has long represented Cohen in his legal affairs, including a racketeering suit brought by Cohen’s ex-wife Patricia and a $4 billion case brought by pharmaceutical company Biovail Corporation in 2006.
Klotz, who didn’t return a request for comment, also represented SAC in its record $600 million settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission earlier this year.
The bio on Willkie Farr’s website says Klotz “regularly provides advice on grand jury and SEC investigations of alleged financial offenses.”
Cohen and other executives at SAC recently received subpoenas to testify before a Manhattan federal grand jury — which may have sparked $4 billion in redemption requests.
US Attorney Preet Bharara declined to comment on Klotz’s visit.
Earlier this year, SAC was hit with $1.7 billion in withdrawal requests after the arrest of ex-SAC trader Mathew Martoma.
Yesterday, federal Judge Paul Gardephe told Martoma to be prepared to go to trial on Nov. 4 and ordered the government to identify all known co-conspirators in the case by July 31.
The government has said it may file a superceding indictment in July with new details in the case, Martoma’s lawyer Richard Strassburg said.
Martoma was arrested last year for allegedly helping SAC earn $276 million on confidential drug-trial information he gleaned from a doctor overseeing the clinical results.
Cohen, who has not been accused of any wrongdoing, participated in Martoma’s trades, the government has said.