Last week news broke that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has charged a big-time New York hedge fund manager, Leon Cooperman, with violating insider trading laws stemming to deals done back in 2010. The insider trading allegedly happened when Cooperman, a big investor in Atlas Pipeline Partners (part of Atlas Energy) sold its Oklahoma natural gas processing operations. Cooperman vigorously denies the allegation and said he’ll defend himself in court. While not exactly close friends, Cooperman was a large investor in Atlas Energy and its subsidiaries. The CEO of Atlas was/is Edward Cohen, so Cooperman is well acquainted with Cohen. As part of a series of articles covering the Cooperman/SEC story, Bloomberg News wrote an article about the relationship between Cooperman and Cohen–mostly about Cohen. We found the article interesting, providing color and background on a very complex man who was at the right time and the right place (the PA Marcellus) to make an incredible amount of money…
