Business

Dan Loeb wants to meet with George Clooney

Want to meet George Clooney? Get in line.

Hedge fund kingpin Dan Loeb said Tuesday he would like to sit down with the Hollywood leading man and mend fences after Clooney called Loeb a “carpetbagger” for attacking Sony Corp.

“I’d love to meet him some time and talk these things out,” Loeb said at a conference. “We probably agree more than we disagree about the company. He obviously got worked up about our role.

“I think he misinterpreted the goal and what we were trying to accomplish.”

In August, Clooney went on a tirade against the activist investor, who had sent Sony a poison-pen letter pressuring it to spin off its film and entertainment assets.

“A guy from a hedge fund entity is the single least qualified person to be making these kinds of judgments, and he is dangerous to our industry,” Clooney said.

Loeb said Tuesday that Clooney’s comments were “a little hyperbolic.”

“What we were arguing for was a partial spin-off of that company,” he said at a New York Times Dealbook conference. “We failed, but I don’t look at our involvement in Sony that way at all.”

Loeb said the company’s entertainment assets were “hiding in plain sight,” and he helped investors and analysts take note.

While Sony rebuffed his call for a spin-off, Loeb said he continues to stay in touch with Sony CEO Kazuo Hirai and had breakfast with the company’s chief financial officer, Masaru Kato, a few weeks ago.

“We wanted transparency, highlight the values, greater focus on profitability and accountability. They’re breaking out all the financial statements of the company, that’s a great outcome for us.”