Hedge-Fund Manager Cohen Buys Warhol Marilyn Picture (Update1)

Date: Sunday, May 27, 2007
Author: Linda Sandler, Bloomberg

May 25 (Bloomberg) -- Hedge-fund manager Steven Cohen bought an Andy Warhol image of Marilyn Monroe, ``Turquoise Marilyn,'' in a private transaction, Jonathan Gasthalter, a spokesman for Cohen, said in a telephone interview.

Cohen, of SAC Capital Advisors LLC, was the hedge-fund industry's fifth-biggest moneymaker with earnings of $900 million in 2006, according to Institutional Investor's Alpha magazine. An active buyer of contemporary art, his holdings range from a Francis Bacon screaming pope to Damien Hirst's pickled shark.

The collector paid an estimated $80 million for Warhol's 40- inch-square Marilyn picture, acquired from Chicago collector Stefan Edlis, the New York Times reported earlier. Gasthalter wouldn't confirm the details.

Warhol, who died in 1987, produced images of U.S. culture in a so-called factory in New York, and is the second most actively traded artist, after Pablo Picasso.

The most expensive Marilyn image ever sold at auction fetched $28 million at Christie's International in New York last week. It was called ``Lemon Marilyn'' because of the background color.

To contact the reporter on this story: Linda Sandler in London at lsandler@bloomberg.net .