Ex-Trader Supports Group That Sparked Wall St. Protests
October 18, 2011 | Read Time: 1 minute
A retired Wall Street trader is the biggest donor to the nonprofit organization that ignited the Occupy Wall Street protests, The New York Times writes.
Robert S. Halper said he has given anticorporate magazine Adbusters $50,000 to $75,000 over the past 20 years and donated $20,000 more in June after editor Kalle Lasn, a longtime friend, outlined his plan to fill Wall Street with demonstrators. A month later Adbusters launched its online call for the protests to begin on Sept. 17, sparking a movement that has spread to other U.S. cities.
Mr. Halper retired in 2007 after a 24-year career in finance that saw him serve as vice chairman of the New York Mercantile Exchange and has since focused on philanthropy, giving about $100,000 annually, mainly to the arts and health-care causes.
The former trader, who has also contributed to Republican Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign, said he visits the Occupy Wall Street camp in New York’s Zuccotti Park daily to talk to demonstrators about politics and the financial system but does not reveal his own background or his support for Adbusters.
