Long before he started rubbing shoulders with the likes of Barack Obama, Pope Francis, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Blackstone CEO and cofounder Stephen Schwarzman was an anxious teenager waiting to hear back from his first-choice college, Harvard University.

But the success that would often grace Schwarzman's life in later years failed him that day: He ended up on Harvard's waiting list.

So the young Schwarzman gave Harvard's dean of admissions at the time a call to let the university know it had made a mistake.

"I thought that they had made an error, or if they hadn't made an error, at least they weren't satisfying my objective," Schwarzman said during Bloomberg anchor Betty Liu's podcast, "Radiate."

Liu suggested that most people would have accepted the decision.

"Well, I'm not good with defeat, and if I have a vision of something I'd like to do, I like to pursue it," Schwarzman responded.

Chinese proverb

"And if you don't achieve that objective, you find another way," Schwarzman continued. "And I guess the Chinese would say they know where they're going, they just don't know how they're going to get there. And so it's like something going down a stream and there's a rock, the water goes on either side ... You don't know which side you'll be going, but you know you will get downriver, right.

"And so I tend to look at things from an imagination point of view of how I would like something to work."

Schwarzman, now worth $11.6 billion, decided that he had a goal, or a "worthy fantasy," to go to Harvard, which was being blocked by an obstacle, the waiting list. He had to find a way around it.

"So it was quite natural for me to want to call them to try and figure out how could I just --" Schwarzman said, trailing off.

But instead of giving Schwarzman a definitive answer, the dean politely responded: "Thank you for the call. I don't normally talk with applicants and I'm sorry to tell you that no one will be getting off of the waiting list. It's not about you, it's just we've had so many acceptances that we won't be taking anyone."

So the person who is now the richest man in private equity went on to attend Yale University, to which he donated some $150 million in May. He did graduate from Harvard Business School in 1969.

Later in Schwarzman's life, he received a good-natured note from the Harvard admissions dean he had phoned, which said something along the lines of: "I think we made a mistake."

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NOW WATCH: This poker concept can make Wall Street investors more successful

Mylan's $26 billion bid to buy Perrigo has flopped, the company said.  Perrigo's stock plunged 10% in advance of the opening bell. 

Here's Mylan's release:

Mylan N.V. (NASDAQ: MYL; TASE) today announced that its offer to acquire all of the issued and to be issued share capital of Perrigo Company plc (NYSE: PRGO; TASE) has lapsed.

As of 8:00 AM Eastern Time on November 13, 2015, 58,040,150 Perrigo ordinary shares, representing approximately 40 percent of outstanding Perrigo ordinary shares, were validly tendered in the offer. Accordingly, the acceptance condition to the offer, as outlined in the September 14, 2015 Offer to Exchange / Prospectus, has not been satisfied and the offer has lapsed in accordance with its terms. As the offer has lapsed, it is no longer capable of further acceptance and both Mylan and tendering Perrigo shareholders have ceased to be bound by prior acceptances.

Any Perrigo ordinary shares which have been tendered by Perrigo shareholders have not been accepted for exchange and will be promptly returned to the relevant Perrigo shareholders.

Mylan's Executive Chairman Robert J. Coury commented, "As we have said all along, Mylan viewed Perrigo as a unique and exciting opportunity, but not one that was required for the future success of our company. With one of the strongest balance sheets in our industry, including a debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio of 2x^[1], as well as our well-recognized prowess in identifying attractive external assets, we are well-positioned to quickly execute on the next strategic, value-enhancing opportunities for our business, some of which we have already identified. These potential external opportunities, coupled with the numerous exciting organic growth drivers we have cultivated and the powerful and differentiated global platform we have built, ensure we will remain a leader in our industry and that we are well-positioned to deliver continued growth in the near- and long-term.             

Mylan CEO Heather Bresch commented, "Mylan's focused approach to organic and inorganic growth has delivered a 27% compound annual growth rate in adjusted diluted earnings per share (EPS) for shareholders since 2008, while strategically and consistently expanding our business. Our recent financial results continue to demonstrate the power of our standalone platform, with double digit-growth in our legacy business, as well as enhanced double-digit growth from the EPD business. With favorable dynamics for our EpiPen® Auto-Injector asset, along with promising future launches, the outlook for 2016 is very strong. Further, we continue to expect that this foundational strength of our business will allow us to deliver on our target of at least $6.00 in adjusted diluted EPS in 2018.  We are confident that our relentless focus on operational excellence, our exciting internal growth opportunities and our meaningful participation in ongoing industry consolidation will position us for continued success well into the future."

Neither Mylan nor, so far as the directors of Mylan are aware, any person acting in concert with Mylan held any relevant Perrigo securities immediately before commencement of the offer period and neither Mylan nor any person acting in concert with Mylan has acquired or agreed to acquire any relevant Perrigo securities during the offer period. Mylan has not received any acceptances of the offer from persons acting in concert with Mylan. Neither Mylan, nor any person acting in concert with Mylan is interested, or holds any short positions, in any relevant Perrigo securities.

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His tweets send share prices plummeting, his TV interviews keep Wall Streeters glued to their screens, and his research reports worry his mother.

That's right. Andrew Left's mom worries for his safety.

Left has been writing about stocks for more than a decade, but in the past few weeks has been catapulted to front-page news.

It started when Left's Citron Research published a report on October 21, asking if Valeant Pharmaceuticals was like Enron.

The company's share price has almost halved since then, prompting a flurry of denials and conference calls in Valeant's defense by the company Bill Ackman, one of its largest shareholders. Valeant also took the step of having its lawyers contact the Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate Left.

Valeant is one of the top holdings for hedge funds. A variety of funds are now in trouble because of Left's report. 

Dreams of being a rabbi

Left says his mom feared that Ackman — who has lost $2 billion on paper on his Valeant investment — might attack her son.

"My mom was afraid and asked if Bill Ackman was going to come to my house and beat me up," Left told Business Insider, explaining that's the "blue-collar mentality" where he grew up.

"Are me and Bill Ackman going to get into a fist fight?! You understand how crazy that is?"

For the record, Left said he has "no problem" with Ackman. "S---, I love my wife. I tell her she's wrong all the time."

But Left, 45, wasn't always such a financial markets hellraiser. He describes his younger self as a "real serious kid" who wanted to be a rabbi. He was a member of Coral Spring High School's debate team and the president of the Jewish youth group. The stock market wasn't part of his world.

It didn't work out that way.

'Wow, a Mercedes'

Left was raised in a small apartment in Coral Springs, Florida. His parents worked multiple jobs.

"I knew nothing about stocks," he said. "No one in my family even owned a stock."

After attending Boston's Northeastern University he found his first job in 1995 by answering an advertisement in a newspaper that said "earn $100,000."

"I thought, 'yeah, I'll do that,'" he said, adding, "It's not like you could Google the firm."

He walked into Universal Commodity Corporation, which had posted the ad, and got the job as a commodities broker. His journey to the interview stayed with him.

"I saw a guy driving a Mercedes. Wow, a Mercedes," he recalled.

Left worked at the firm, making cold calls, for about 10 months. Two years later, the National Futures Association (NFA) sanctioned the firm and all its 19 employees, including Left.

Betting against 'the Wolf of Wall Street'

A friend of Left's then taught him to trade stocks. By 24, he became active in short selling.

Having grown up in south Florida and gone to school in Boston, Left said that he met a number of folks who went on to work for boiler rooms on Long Island, including Stratton Oakmont, the firm led by Jordan Belfort, "the Wolf of Wall Street."

Instead of working at one of those firms, Left said that he decided to short the stocks they promoted. That lasted only a little while because the boiler rooms eventually went out of business.

After that, he started shorting stocks from bulletin-board scams where people would send out a blast email saying, "Buy this stock now or you'll miss out."

He then progressed to doing his own research, and he has now been writing about stocks for 14 years. He initially launched under the brand StockLemon.com. His secret weapon in those early days: Google. 

"I knew one thing that no one else knew. Google. Everyone was using Yahoo, AltaVista. And I was finding good stuff [using Google] and publishing my findings online."

StockLemon later became Citron. 

In the latest sign of Citron's influence, a Tweet from its account on Monday helped wipe almost 20% off the share price of another drugmaker called Mallinckrodt. It didn't contain much — just a comparison of Mallinckrodt to Valeant, and the promise of "more to follow." Left said while "Valeant has been taking all the heat" the business model of Mallinckrodt faces as much risk.

A typical day

On a typical day, Left wakes up at 4:30 a.m. He checks his email, reads, and conducts his own research. He works on his articles and handles his trading.

"When I'm looking at stocks, I want to know everything. What's it like to be an employee? How customers feel? I want to do my own research of the product. I want to see if it's better than your competitor. I want to read your filings. I want to completely get an understanding," he said.

He continued: "I just want to get immersed and really learn it. The best part about my job is constantly being challenged and having to learn new things. I can't imagine going to work and selling the same s--- every day."

Sometimes, to get a pulse on things, he simply observes the world around him.

For example, in spring 2009, Left said he was watching CNBC and it looked like the market was falling to pieces.

"My daughter, she was five. I said to her, 'Lola, what do you want to do?' I had to get away from my screen.'

She asked him if they could go to Disneyland.

'F-------- Disneyland, so far, such a pain in the a--. Whatever. I'll take her. We get there. The line to get into Disney was 45 minutes long just to buy the tickets, just to wait in line. I'm like 'that's ludicrous.' Don't these people know on CNBC the world is coming to the end?"

After that, he went long the market. It was a good move. A couple of days later the market bottomed.

"I thank my daughter for asking me to Disneyland."

Left said he can get so immersed in the research that he has to force himself to get away from the computer. He loves to play golf. 

"When I'm on the golf course it allows me to think and be away from the screen. It clears my head."

He enjoys spending time with his family. He's married to Stephanie, his second wife, and has four children.

He lives in a gated community in Beverley Hills, with neighbors including Slash from Guns N' Roses, Paris Hilton, and Christina Aguilera.

He said Valeant will probably be the biggest company he targets.

"I'm closer to the end of my career," he said. "I'm tired!"

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NOW WATCH: JAMES ALTUCHER: 'Warren Buffett is a f-----g liar'

I asked legendary billionaire energy tycoon T. Boone Pickens for the best piece of financial advice for someone my age.

I'm 27, so this advice will probably be useful for most millennials — anyone aged 19 to 34.

His answer was surprisingly simple.  

"First thing I'd say is if you haven't developed a good work ethic, you better do it," Pickens said.

"The work ethic is the backbone of success as far as I'm concerned."

Pickens, the author of "The First Billion Is The Hardest", explained that you "have to be skilled at something unless you want to go out there and dig a ditch."

He added that educating yourself doesn't necessarily mean going to college. There's vocational training for a number of good jobs. Going to college or getting your MBA is up to you. Those things don't matter though unless you've developed a strong work ethic.

Good work ethic

"It's very simple—good work ethic. If you want to be a lawyer, geologist, or a nurse, work ethic comes first. Everything else falls into place."

Pickens, 87, developed his work ethic at a young age. Growing up in Oklahoma during the Great Depression, Pickens and other kids his age all had jobs. He said no one he knew was lazy. 

"I grew up at a time where everything was very simple. You saved money. Things were tight." 

At age 12, Pickens ran a small paper route with 28 papers to deliver. He would pick up his papers at 3 a.m. and deliver them all before school, making one penny per paper.

"It was real money, you know. You don't spend any money for four days, you got a dollar. I'm not spending money." 

Pickens was diligent about saving.

"I've always had money," he said, "My mother didn't know where it was and it almost drove her crazy. She tore up the house trying to find where I had hidden the money." 

Pickens, an only child, lived in a two bedroom house that was built in 1923 by his grandmother. 

One day, his mom came into his bedroom and demanded to know where he had hidden his money. 

"I made her leave the room. She said, 'I want to know where you're hiding the money.' I had a crawl space in my closet covered with a rug. She made me count [my money] on the bed. I had $286 dollars. I was 14. She couldn't believe it."

Pickens said that you don't want to ever be caught without money. 

"I have never been without money in my pocket. I always had money."

SEE ALSO: I asked a Wall Street billionaire for the best piece of financial advice—this is what he said

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NOW WATCH: T. Boone Pickens' strict morning routine will inspire you to plan your days better

Steve Schwarzman is the richest CEO in the private-equity industry, and the firm he founded, Blackstone Group, manages more money than any of its contemporaries.

But he still sees room to grow, he said in an interview from Blackstone's New York headquarters.

Blackstone has already grown significantly since its 2007 initial public offering, when it ran less than $80 billion in assets — it now controls more than $300 billion.

That's a four-fold increase in eight years. The growth will slow in the next eight, but Blackstone could still double in size, he said.

"We've communicated to our investors that we have an expectation that we'll be able to grow in the 12%, 15% annually without acquisitions," he told Business Insider.

"That would make us, over eight years, roughly double the size. We're always selling things and giving money back. So for us to be double the size it means we've grown quite quickly."

Schwarzman met with Business Insider for a lengthy interview, in which he addressed the best investment he never did, the pro sports team he would like to run (but says he won't buy), and his rule of thumb for making deals.

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NOW WATCH: Donald Trump was one of the first to be 'too big to fail'

Banks have an energy problem.

In a note on Friday, JPMorgan's Vivek Juneja broke down the results from the 2015 Shared National Credits exam, a Federal Reserve initiative to review and classify large syndicated loans.

The review captures any loan bigger than $20 million that is shared by three or more supervised institutions. The SNC provides insight on so-called classified loans, or loans with unpaid interest and principal outstanding that are in danger of defaulting.

According to the results of the SNC, classified loans to oil and gas companies jumped four-fold.

The report said: "O&G classifieds rose to about 12% of total O&G commitments, well above the 5.3% ratio of classifieds for all other loan commitments. Put another way, O&G classified loans now account for 15% of total classifieds, up from 3.6% a year ago."

That means around one in seven loans to oil and gas companies are edging toward default.

"What is also troubling is that the regulators noted a general lack of protective covenants in reserve based loans which will further exacerbate the situation," Juneja writes.

Per his note:

It is likely to get worse still for banks. The SNC review was done in the second quarter, and there have been further credit rating downgrades, defaults, and oil-price drops since then.

"Hence," Juneja said, "we would expect the levels of classifieds to increase sharply further in the next SNC review and further increase in provisions at banks more exposed to O&G loan SNCs."

As Business Insider's Jon Marino reported in September, banks are starting to pull back from lending to energy companies.

In September, banks were basing their lending decisions on an oil price of $48 a barrel, down from $77 a barrel last year. That means energy companies will not be able to borrow nearly as much as they used to.

Not to mention the pressures banks are getting from regulators.

Regulators from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Federal Reserve, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. reportedly met with banks in September to discuss reserve-based lending requirements.

SEE ALSO: Banks will pull the plug on energy companies

SEE ALSO: DEUTSCHE BANK: A wave of defaults may be just around the corner

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NOW WATCH: Stunning drone video captures the beauty of Canada's oil province

Wall Street bonuses are likely to dip between 5% and 10% at big banks this year, according to an annual industry survey published by consulting firm Johnson Associates. 

But there's one big bright spot, according to Alan Johnson, managing director of the firm. 

"Private equity would be at the top of the hit parade," he told Business Insider. 

According to Johnson Associates' annual compensation report, private-equity professionals can expect bonuses to increase from 5% to 10% — and that doesn't count "carry," or the money that they make from funds' profits.

In the private-equity business, Johnson Associates is expecting annual bonuses to rise at a time when other Wall Street businesses — notably investment banks and hedge funds — are set to pay out smaller year-end payouts. 

"It's more than a blip," Johnson said. "2016 is looking tougher, too."

It isn't entirely unexpected at big banks, which appeared to brace for lower bonus numbers earlier this fall. 

Johnson Associates report says hedge fund pros can expect bonus payouts to fall as much as 15% and that asset managers' bonuses will decline by about 5%.

On the investment and commercial banking side, management will pay 10% less on bonuses and investment banking underwriting bonus pay is expected to fall by as much as 15%.

Fixed income sales and trading bonuses are expected to fall by as much as 20%, according to the report.

On the investment and commercial banking side, the lone bright spot for year-end payouts is investment banking advisory services, which could see bonuses increase by as much as 20%, according to Johnson Associates.

That comes as some Wall Street banks have seen better-than-expected performance out of their traditional  investment banking divisions.

The firm tracks bonuses' rises (and falls) year-over-year, and this is what post-recession bonus pay looks like:

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NOW WATCH: Donald Trump was one of the first to be 'too big to fail'

Wall Street analysts and economists speak their own language. 

Words like "research" and "analysis" mean one thing to regular folks, but something totally different to the folks with a financial interest in how they are perceived.

To address this, Wall Street Journal columnist Jason Zweig is out with a new book, "The Devil's Financial Dictionary," which features satirical, yet insightful definitions that decode the meaning of everyday financial jargon.

Just in time for the holidays, this compendium of Zweig's wit is the perfect stocking stuffer for anyone remotely interested in finance.

We picked 13 terms from 200+ page text and shared them below.

Enjoy.

Forecasting (n.)

The attempt to predict the unknowable by measuring the irrelevant; a task that, in one way or another, employs most people on Wall Street.

Source:The Devil's Financial Dictionary

Regulator (n.)

A bureaucrat who attempts to stop rampaging elephants by bradishing feather-dusters at them. Also, a future employee of a bank, hedge fund, brokerage, investment-management firm, or financial lobbying organization.

Source:The Devil's Financial Dictionary

Irrational (adj.)

A word you use to describe any investor other than yourself.

Source: The Devil's Financial Dictionary

Bud Light maker Anheuser-Busch InBev announced Wednesday that it has agreed a deal to buy SABMiller.

The deal is worth around $108 billion, and is set to be the biggest takeover so far this year.

That's great news for Wall Street.

Both Anheuser-Busch InBev and SABMiller have reached out to a handful of advisers at investments banks large and small, and the fees are going to be hefty.

Consultant Freeman and Co. previously estimated that advisory fees for those working with the bidder — AB InBev — would be between $95 million and $115 million.

Advisers to SABMiller would be in line for between $100 million and $120 million.

That doesn't include all the banks working on the financing of the transaction. AB InBev has obtained $75 billion of loans for the deal, in what is the biggest loan deal on record. 

So who's getting all the work?

Lazard is the lead adviser to Anheuser-Busch InBev, and there are another five banks advising on the deal, several of which are involved in the financing. They include Deutsche Bank, Barclays, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, BNP Paribas, and Standard Bank. 

Four banks are advising SABMiller: JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, and, notably, Robey Warshaw, a 3-year-old, nine-person advisory boutique.

Here's what we know about the bankers on the deal:

Lazard

Alexander Hecker

Hecker is cohead of consumer and retail investment banking at independent investment bank Lazard.

He worked on the InBev-Anheuser Busch deal in 2008 in addition to the more recent Warren Buffett-3G Capital acquisition of Heinz. He has also previously worked on AB InBev’s acquisition of Grupo Modelo, and AmBev’s acquisition of Cerveceria Nacional Dominicana.

Hecker has a history of working with 3G Capital, the Brazilian private equity giant behind AB InBev. He also worked with the firm to take Burger King and Playboy Industries private.

Jean Greene

Greene is a managing director at Lazard. She joined the firm in 1999 and has worked on deals involving Tyco, ITT, and Bon-Ton's acquisition of Saks. Before joining Lazard, Greene covered oil and gas companies at Smith Barney.

William Rucker

Rucker is the head of Lazard in London, and is known as one of UK's top advisers. In the past year alone he has worked on transactions involving UK companies Aldermore, Greene King, Quintain Estates, and Polyus Gold, according to filings. He often gets involved in cross-border deals with the firm’s New York arm.

Charlie Foreman

Foreman joined Lazard in 2009 from Deutsche Bank, and typically focuses on capital-markets transactions. He has also been working on the initial public offering of payment-processing company World Pay, which listed in the UK on Tuesday morning, making it a busy few days.

Other bankers on the deal at Lazard include Mario Skoff in New York, and Richard Shaw and Marcus Taylor in London.

Deutsche Bank

The Deutsche Bank team includes Bruce Evans, Bob Douglas, Simon Denny, Ben Lawrence, Andrew Tusa, and Simon Hollingsworth. Evans is one of the bank's most senior dealmakers, having previously coheaded M&A in the Americas. Denny runs investment banking in South Africa, while Tusa joined Deutsche Bank from Bank of America Merrill Lynch earlier this year as cohead of corporate broking. 

Lawrence has worked on deals involving Shire, BTG, DP World, and Hammerson, while Hollingsworth is a vice president at Deutsche Bank. He joined the firm in June from Credit Suisse.

Barclays

Barclays' team is made up of Wilco Faessen, Gary Posternack, and Mark Todd. Faessen is a consumer-sector specialist, while Posternack is global head of M&A. Todd is a Europe-based M&A specialist.

BNP Paribas

The team at the French bank is made up of Eric Jacquemot, who coheads M&A in Europe, and Bjorn De Carro, who is a consumer-goods specialist.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch

The team is made up of veteran consumer and retail-banking specialist Federico Aliboni and Michael Findlay, who coheads UK investment banking. Geoff Iles, an M&A banker who was promoted to managing director last year, also worked on the deal.

Standard Bank

Fradreck Shoko, Ian Carton, and Clive Potter are advising AB Inbev in relation to African matters. 

Robey Warshaw

Simon Robey

Robey coheads the London-based boutique with Simon Warshaw. Before founding his boutique advisory firm three years ago, he was head of UK investment banking and cohead of global mergers and acquisitions at Wall Street giant Morgan Stanley.

In addition to being a star dealmaker, he's also a professional standard singer, according to Financial News. He's chairman of the Royal Opera House board.

Simon Warshaw

Warshaw was the head of investment banking at UBS before joining Robey to form their boutique advisory firm.

He also worked on another giant transaction involving a US company and a UK-listed firm, working with Vodafone on the sale of its stake in Verizon Wireless to Verizon. That deal was valued at $130 billion.

JPMorgan

John Muncey

Muncey is head of JPMorgan's corporate-finance team in the UK. He joined the bank from UBS. He was a managing director in the European consumer team at that bank.

Muncey has a history of expertise in the liquor and beverage industry. According to the FT, his clients include liquor giant Diageo and UK brewer Scottish and Newcastle, in addition to Cadbury Schweppes, Kraft, and Germany's Tchibo.

Dwayne Lysaght

Lysaght is JPMorgan's head of UK mergers and acquisition.

He has worked on a number of deals involving North American buyers and UK targets. He advised UK insurer Brit on its sale to Canadian peer Fairfax earlier this year, and previously worked with AbbVie on its aborted deal with UK pharmaceutical company Shire.

Morgan Stanley

Henry Stewart

Stewart runs UK and Irish investment banking for Morgan Stanley. He is a specialist in the consumer sector and a longtime adviser to SABMiller.

Paul Baker

Baker is an old-school British banker who heads corporate broking for Morgan Stanley. He assumed that role in 2004. Corporate broking is a practice unique to the UK, where public companies name one or more companies as retained advisers.

Goldman Sachs

Gilberto Pozzi

London-based Pozzi is a consumer-sector specialist and was promoted earlier this year from his role as head of M&A in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa to global cohead of mergers and acquisitions. He joined Goldman in 1995 as an associate, and made partner in 2008. He has previously worked on deals for Unilever, Kraft Foods, and Jimmy Choo.

Mark Sorrell

Sorrell is cohead of UK investment banking at Goldman Sachs, and is known as an excellent M&A technician. His father, Martin, is the chief executive of advertising giant WPP, while his two brothers also worked at Goldman Sachs for a period. Jonathan Sorrell is now chief financial officer at hedge fund Man Group, while Robert Sorrell joined Moelis & Co. in London last year.

SEE ALSO: The Brazilian private-equity titan who bought Kraft, Heinz, and Burger King is behind the $108 billion Bud deal

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NOW WATCH: The story behind the famously offensive twitter account that parodies Wall Street culture

When the 'King of Capital" Steve Schwarzman isn't tending to his empire, he's writing some 350 school kids ultra personal notes about their report cards.

The Blackstone chairman and CEO sat down to chat on Bloomberg anchor Betty Liu's podcast Radiate about his interviewing style, what it means to be successful, and how he nearly got into Harvard. 

The richest man in private equity also talked about how he was writing to about 350 K-12 students about their grades, absences, and school subjects.

He told Liu: "I got involved with the Inner-City Scholarship Fund, which is the parochial schools in New York City. And that's an amazing thing where my wife and I are sponsoring about three hundred kids I think, something like that."

He said around 70% of the kids are either at or below the poverty line, and 90% are minorities. The system graduates 99% of the kids, he said, where the kids would have a graduation rate of 50% to 60% in the public school system.

"I look at all the report cards, and kids are doing well in certain subjects, or not as well, or they've been absent more, or something," Schwarzman said. "I write them a personal note on my stationery, cause I think that's a good thing for them to get. I comment on something in their report card, so they know it's been read, and that somebody cares about them. And then when they graduate, you know, you meet them."

Scholarship fund

The students are a part of the Inner-City Scholarship Fund, which helps support roughly 7,500 underprivileged students in K-12 Catholic Schools around New York City annually. On average, these students live in households with an income of $24,000.

Schwarzman and his wife, Christine Schwarzman have donated over $48 million to the Inner-City Scholarship Fund since 2001, helping support roughly 350 underprivileged students.

Recent contributions from the Schwarzman couple have made it possible for the fund to extend scholarships to an additional 2,900 students starting fall 2016.

"I mean I could meet them earlier, there's only so many things I can physically do, but it's really neat, and they write you notes during the year thanking you for changing their lives," Schwarzman said. 

"I mean that's why I do it, because I want these kids to understand that not only is somebody paying for them... but that somebody cares about them."

Schwarzman, who is worth more than $11 billion, says it is a rewarding process. He's seen the students transform their futures throughout their schooling.

"You see the changes in these people," Schwarzman said. "You ask them, 'What are you doing?  (They say) 'I'm going to be an accountant, I'm going to be a nurse, I'm going to college for this.'"

"You know... they're going to be... good members of society, they're going to be paying taxes, they're going to have nice families," Schwarzman said. "They're going to have what we would call a very good, middle income type of life which if they didn't have those educational opportunities, they wouldn't necessarily have that outcome."

Schwarzman is Jewish, while his wife, Christine Schwarzman, who is Catholic, is a Trustee of the Inner-City Scholarship Fund. About a third of students who receive scholarships from the fund are not Catholic.

In the field of higher education, Schwarzman has also created the Schwarzman Scholars, which aims to teach university students about China.

Watch out for the Podcast here.

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NOW WATCH: JAMES ALTUCHER: 'Warren Buffett is a f-----g liar'

Zach Coopersmith has learned some important lessons over the course of his Wall Street career.

But for the 30-year-old Leading Ridge Capital cofounder, one particular moment really stands out.

It was the evening he found himself in the middle of Lehman Brothers' notorious "fourth floor"— where distressed credit and high-yield bonds were once traded — as Bloomberg screens flashed red with news the firm was filing for bankruptcy.

"Seeing the speed and the magnitude with which Lehman collapsed was eye-opening, both from a business and a philanthropic standpoint," Coopersmith told Business Insider.

He was a year and a half out of college and working for the Wall Street firm when it filed for Chapter 11 protection in September 2008.

"The clear lessons for me were: Have a transferable skill set — number one. Two, a work-life balance," he said. 

Coopersmith learned the importance of taking charge of his own destiny, and that led to two important life changes.

First, he dove into philanthropy, and joined the board of the Make-A-Wish Foundation's New York chapter. Second, he changed the direction of his professional career and ditched Wall Street banks for private equity.

Taking control

At Lehman, Coopersmith had been frustrated that he invested in businesses without ever having any real impact on them.

Now, in private equity, he says he can see the direct impact his investments have — regardless of whether those impacts are good or bad.

"Being able to call more of the shots gave me more comfort that the end-outcome would be either a success or a failure based off my actions, not at the mercy of the actions of others." 

While he was launching Leading Ridge with his father in 2009, Coopersmith also began throwing Make-A-Wish New York's annual Toast to Wishes fundraiser, now one of the hottest charity events in the city.

He approached his involvement with Make-A-Wish in the same way he would a private equity investment — it was an organization that had credibility and was fiscally responsible. He decided he wanted to partner with it.

The Toast to Wishes initiative was something Coopersmith came up with together with a few close friends.

"We felt like there was a void in the market, so to speak, of really fun — truly fun — charity events that supported great causes," he said.

They aimed to fill that void.

In its first year, the event raised $45,000. The second year it raised $170,000. Now, in its sixth year, it's raised $1.5 million in total and continues to sell out every year.

"With so many things to do, and so many places to give, why Make-A-Wish?" Coopersmith said. "For me it's simple — and it's the mission."

This year's party takes place November 19 at the Marquee in Chelsea. You can learn more about it at the Toast to Wishes website. 

And learn more about Coopersmith, his philanthropy, and his business in Bloomberg's "Good Fortunes" series:

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When JCPenney reported results for the second quarter, the news came as a surprise — for most investors.

To a small group though, word that the retailer was seeing better than expected traffic was no shock. These investors, mostly hedge funds, pay a firm called RS Metrics for intelligence on JCPenney's parking lots across America.

Using satellite images, RS Metrics could tell that traffic into the stores was rising in April and May, and its clients were able to get alerts on those increases in near real-time.

And, if they chose, they could trade on those: JCPenney's shares jumped more than 10% after the report, over two days in mid-August.

Welcome to the world of "alternative data," where obscure data sets can be turned into tradable information. It's a cottage industry of tech firms that have sprung up in recent years, processing information on everything from the weather to web searches and selling it for thousands of dollars to hedge funds looking for any advantage they can get.

It is legal (with some parameters), and, in part, it's just the application of sophisticated technology to tasks that research analysts have done for years the hard way. In the past, the same hunch about JCPenney might've been gathered by sending an analyst into several of the company's stores to do a "channel check."

For the providers of this data, it's still early days, says Michael Gantcher, head of sales at RS Metrics.

"It is the Wild West, and I mean that in a positive sense," he said. "It isn't bureaucratic, systematized or over-regulated. The buy side can ask a question it needs answered."

Alternative data

Alternative data refers to anything that is raw or unstructured, and is distinct from things like company filings, historic market prices, or investor presentations.

The industry has sprung up amid an explosion in obtainable data over the past decade, taking in everything from mobile-phone data to job postings to traffic data.

"There is a whole class of emerging data, and that comes from the deployment of million of sensors around the world by governments, companies or consumers," said Adam Broun, chief operating officer at Kensho, a startup in the field that's backed by Goldman Sachs. 

'Microclimates'

"There is better weather data, and you can get much more detail on microclimates. There is traffic data, agricultural data, and every smart phone is a data collection tool. There is web data. The list goes on," said Broun.

In its simplest for, the approach is pretty straightforward. If a company reports revenues on a quarterly basis, and an investor is able to see the same revenue trends in an alternative data set — think website hits, road traffic, or construction permits — then they can get a read on quarterly performance ahead of the competition, explained Erik Haines, chief executive of Quanton Data.

"If you are able to do that to allow you to beat consensus, and you have a $100 million position in that company, that has enormous value," he said.

Cottage industry

The first adopters of the data-driven trading were hedge funds that focus on company fundamentals and use the additional information to test out their hypothesis, according to Gene Ekster, who has worked with alternative data at companies including 1010data and Point72 Asset Management.

Quantitative funds have also zoned in on this kind of data, along with so-called quantamental funds, which mix quant approaches with bottom-up analysis.

They typically either license data and crunch it using their own internals teams, pay for analysis crunched by third parties, or gather the data themselves. The slide below, from a white paper on alternative data published by Integrity Research Associates and written by Ekster, sets out the process.

Traditional mutual-fund investors are also now moving in to the space too. 

Vanguard Group, one of the world's largest asset managers, is using the data to understand market moves better, said John Ameriks, the firm's head of quantitative equity. He cited sources of data ranging from social media to government filings to text analysis. 

"We really want to see, well, what’s the causality chain?" he said.  "When we see something occurring in the marketplace in conjunction with this type of news, with this type of information, or this type of search activity, why do we think that’s leading to a signal ... and what’s the theory behind why it’s gonna persist? And that’s the hard part."

The sources of the data are springing up too, including companies that are generating "exhaust data" as a byproduct of their own internal functions. 

One example is Twitter, which is first and foremost a communications platform, but has found value in the social-sentiment data it is able to pull together.

Elaine Ellis, a marketing manager at Gnip, told Business Insider in September that Twitter sells data to banks and hedge funds directly. 

"A lot of companies are looking at data exhaust to see if there is value there," Kensho's Broun said. They tend to be reluctant to do a lot with it, sometimes for confidentiality and regulatory reasons, or because there isn't a lot they want to do it."

To be sure, there are impediments to the use of this data becoming widespread. Privacy is clearly a key issue. A story in August by Bradley Hope at The Wall Street Journalon the tracking of bank cards caused a storm, for example. According to that story, Yodlee, an online personal-finance firm, sold some bank-card transaction data to firms that were then able to accurately gauge spending at specific retailers. 

Regulation in the sector is still in its infancy too. There are no well-known legal cases that address the use of harvesting web data for investment purposes, for example, according to Ekster.

"Alternative data research compliance is an increasingly important topic and subject of intense discussion in part due to its regulatory ambiguity," he said in the white paper. 

Regardless, it seems that mining raw and unstructured data for investment insights is going mainstream. Investors are hiring data specialists and putting projects in place to make sure they aren't left behind. 

"At some point this isn't going to be alternative data anymore," Ekster said. 

SEE ALSO: There is a new indicator for China's economic activity, and it doesn't look good

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Three decades ago, a former bond trader named Michael Bloomberg wanted the founder of a fast-growing private-equity firm to back his financial-data startup.

But a meeting between the two men — who went on to become two of the richest men in New York City — ended without a deal.

"It makes me sad every time I see him," Stephen Schwarzman, cofounder and chief executive of Blackstone, told Business Insider.

"That was probably an $8 billion mistake," he said.

The reason? Bloomberg, who at the time was ramping up his media and data startup and looking for outside capital, didn't want a partner who would sell. Ever.Steve Fenster, a corporate-restructuring whiz who sat on the board of Bloomberg LP, and was a friend to Schwarzman, helped broker the introduction.

'Legally prohibited'

It was very early on in Blackstone's existence. Private-equity firms, in order to secure capital from outside investors, typically aim to give that cash back to investors, with additional returns, in seven to 10 years.

"I told him, 'We'd love to do this, because you're terrific, but I am legally prohibited,'" Schwarzman recalled.

"Mike wanted to have a partner. His definition of a partner was someone who never sold ... Getting into a situation there's no way out of, was not permissible."

It's a deal that might have rewritten Forbes' list of richest Americans, on which the former mayor of New York City ranks eighth and Schwarzman most recently placed 38th.

Bloomberg LP declined comment when reached by Business Insider.

SEE ALSO: Inside Steve Schwarzman's improbable ride to Wall Street’s throne

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Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) says he wants big banks locked out of his cabinet if he is elected president next year.

He singled out one in particular.

"We have seen Wall Street and Goldman Sachs dominate administrations," he said during Saturday night's Democratic debate at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. "Wall Street representatives will not be in my cabinet."

Sanders' lashing out at Goldman Sachs comes as yet another Goldman alumnus is taking on a prominent position at the Federal Reserve, which holds a key role in regulating the banks. Last week, former Goldman vice president Neel Kashkari revealed he would join the central bank's Minneapolis hub as its president.

Sanders was also quick to highlight other candidates' ties to big-money donors.

"I'm not asking Wall Street or the billionaires for money," Sanders said at the debate, pointing out that he is the lone candidate operating without a sanctioned super PAC. Sanders also called Wall Street donors "the major campaign contributor" to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the Democratic front-runner.

The feeling may be mutual between Sanders and big banks.

Sanders' candidacy has blossomed in recent months in part thanks to his contrasting of himself to other candidates on big-money donations that have flooded both sides of the aisle.

Not only is he a proponent of reintroducing the Glass-Steagall Act to break up big banks, but Sanders has also pushed aggressively for tax increases on top earners and a $15 minimum wage for American workers.

SEE ALSO: Donald Trump snipes back after Martin O'Malley calls him a 'carnival barker' at the Democratic debate

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Blackstone has grown its size nearly four-fold since its 2007 IPO.

But the biggest private equity firm on Wall Street has seen even greater growth in its real estate division, which has expanded from a $17.7 billion business when Steve Schwarzman took his company public to one that today manages nearly $100 billion worth of property. 

Steve Schwarzman is America's landlord, now, and he's not afraid to acknowledge it. 

"We’re now, we believe, the largest owner of real estate in the world," he told Business Insider in an interview at his company's Park Avenue headquarters in midtown Manhattan.

"We have a performance record that is… pretty much in a league of our own, we’ve compounded [returns of] around 18% after fees. We’ve had almost no losses of any type."

'League of our own'

Time and again, Blackstone has taken on real estate deals — even in down markets — and turned them into winners. Since 2009, according to Blackstone's website, the firm has put more than $50 billion to use and earlier this year closed a real estate fund worth nearly $16 billion. That fund is separate to the firm's private equity investing.

After undertaking one of the biggest private equity deals ever, a buyout of Sam Zell's Equity Office Properties, Blackstone has today sold off most of the assets from the $36 billion deal. It is also in the process of exiting Hilton Worldwide Holdings, the high-end hotel chain Blackstone bought in 2007 at the height of the real estate bubble and salvaged during the financial crisis. 

It wasn't always this way. 

"We started [Blackstone] in 1985," Schwarzman pointed out speaking with Business Insider. "We made our first real estate investment in 1992; we raised our first fund in 1993. That was eight years after the firm started. Eight years is an endless amount of time when you start a business from nothing."

More recent transactions include its $6 billion buy of Strategic Hotels, Blackstone's investment in the building formerly known as the Sears Tower and a $3 billion deal to buy property funds from CalPERS, the largest US pension.

As Blackstone continues its push to expand — with goals to double the size of its assets under management— expect the property business to be a cornerstone of Schwarzman's legacy. 

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Blackstone Group CEO Steve Schwarzman knows which sports team he would buy. 

Business Insider asked Schwarzman that very question at an interview this week, and he picked the New York Knicks after a lengthy pause.

He's also grim about the work that it would entail.

"You'd have to transform the team completely," he told Business Insider. 

Ouch. He's not saying anything that would shock Knicks fans, however. The last time the Knicks were National Basketball Association champions, Studio 54 was still a thing in New York City and Schwarzman had barely started his Wall Street career. 

'One terrific franchise player'

"What you need to be very successful in one of these professional sports arenas is, you need a great owner, a great GM, [and] a great coach," Schwarzman told Business Insider. On top of that, "you need one terrific franchise player."

Woebegone New York Knicks faithful have dreamed for years that the Dolan family, which controls the team, would sell them.

Fans have gone as far as publicly petitioning the current owner to sell the franchise, and recent rumors that the Knicks would finally be dealt to more capable hands only resulted in the sale of Cablevision, a media company that once owned the Knicks.

Schwarzman — if he ever did buy the Knickerbockers — would be joining an elite cadre of private equity veterans, including founders or senior executives at firms such as Bain Capital, Apollo Global Management, and Sun Capital, who have recently spent record amounts to invest in pro-basketball franchises.

And in a way, the Knicks represent the ideal investment for a private equity pro — coming from an industry where "turnaround deals" often entail implementing a completely new strategy. 

There's just one problem, Knicks faithful. He's already given this thought, and it's never going to happen. 

"[New England Patriots owner] Bob Kraft asked me, 'Why don’t you buy a New York team?'" Schwarzman said.

"I said, 'I don’t have the time to make it into a winner.' I don’t have enough time in my life because I’m trying to do that with Blackstone."

SEE ALSO: Inside Steve Schwarzman's improbable ride to Wall Street’s throne

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JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon is apparently a fan of Kentucky Fried Chicken. 

The longest-serving CEO of a major US bank spoke on Monday November 16 with Andrew Ross Sorkin at the Robin Hood Investors' Conference in New York.

And according to Bloomberg, Dimon identified three stocks that he owns.

They are: YUM Brands, Union Pacific and Boeing. 

The stocks are having a pretty good year. Boeing and Union Pacific shares are up nearly 10% so far this year.

YUM owns Kentucky Fried Chicken, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell and recently announced it was splitting in two. The company's shares are down 5% in 2015.

Top hedge fund managers will be shedding light on their investment picks at the event all day. Earlier today, hedge fund manager David Einhorn reiterated his bet on a US-based natural gas and coal production company, sending shares up to start the day. 

Earlier in the day, JPMorgan's Twitter account posted a shot of the Dimon interview. The event is closed to media. 

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Steve Schwarzman, chief executive of private-equity industry giant Blackstone, isn't worried about the prospect of interest rates rising. 

Schwarzman knows the conventional narrative is that rising interest rates will hurt private equity firms that borrow heavily to make acquisitions. In an interview, he said this concern overlooks the reason the Federal Reserve is choosing to raise rates in the first place.

"If interest rates are going up because you have terrific economic growth, then what happens is our companies and most of our assets do very well," he said. 

"It's just the opposite of what most people would think."

Of course there are scenarios in which rising interest rates would cause some pain. 

"Companies that employ high levels of labor end up sometimes getting pinched, in terms of their margins," he said. 

But real estate, one of Blackstone's fastest-growing businesses, should perform well. Blackstone was founded in 1985 but didn't start putting money into real estate until the early 1990s. 

"If it’s a scenario where there’s not much economic growth, but it’s just inflation, real estate tends to do well, because it reprices its assets very regularly," he said.

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What's going on in the Golden State?

The Securities and Exchange Commission just published its annual report on whistleblowers, and disclosed that California generated 646 tips to the federal agency. 

That's more than double the number of tips generated in New York (261), the state with the second-highest number of whistleblowers.

The SEC received a total of 3,932 tips during fiscal 2015, up slightly from 3,620 over the same time last year. 

Among the more common tips: financial disclosure and reporting violations, offering fraud, manipulation and — of course — insider trading. 

It was also a record year for payouts from the SEC: the agency paid more than $37 million out to tipsters during the fiscal year, it said in the report. 

Since 2011, when the Dodd-Frank Act created the SEC's whistleblower program, the agency has rewarded tipsters with $54 million, the report says. 

Still, the agency's tracking of fraud complaints coming from California is staggering put in context of what the SEC hears from other US states. 

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It has been a rough year for investment banks. 

And it is all because of the big banks' fixed income, currencies and commodities — or FICC — divisions, which for so long have powered earnings.

According to analytics company Coalition, the FICC divisions at the ten biggest Wall Street bank generated $52.8 billion in revenues in the first nine months of 2015.

That compares with equities sales and trading, which made $35.4 billion, and traditional investment banking, which generated $29.6 billion.

The FICC divisions have suffered over the past year, and thethird quarter was especially brutal. Third quarter fixed income revenues across the ten biggest banks fell 18% against a year ago, according to Coalition.

The slides below, taken from a Coalition report released Monday, illustrate just how terrible the year has been for the FICC businesses.

Take a look:

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FICC revenues over the first nine months of the year are down 9% year-on-year, with credit revenues down a third and securitization revenues down 21%. The only bright spot is foreign exchange.

The third quarter was especially tough, with FICC revenues down 18% compared to the same quarter last year.

Front office headcount in FICC is down 3% year-on-year, extending a trend of just cuts dating back to 2010.