The Hornets' new owner
Plus: Previewing this year's elections; New podcast on feeding Charlotte's hungry; New event space at Camp North End; 4 shot at Independence Boulevard club; 1985 Humpy Wheeler award for sale
Good morning! Today is Monday, June 19, 2023. You’re reading The Charlotte Ledger, an e-newsletter with local business-y news and insights for Charlotte, N.C.
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Meet the new boss (Gabe Plotkin), much different than the old boss (Michael Jordan); financier rose quickly on Wall Street but has had setbacks, too
by Tony Mecia
The leader of the new Charlotte Hornets ownership group is a Tom Brady fan who recently bought two waterfront houses for $44M in Miami Beach — and who says the topsy-turvy world of finance where he made his millions is a lot like sports.
Gabe Plotkin, 44, is far less well-known than Michael Jordan, the basketball legend who announced Friday that he’s selling his majority stake in the Charlotte Hornets. But he could soon be the boss: Plotkin and fellow financier Rick Schnall are leading a group of investors who are buying the team, subject to league approval.
The new investor group announced Friday has plenty of Northeastern financial types but is also an eclectic mix that includes rapper J. Cole, country music singer Eric Church and the daughter of the late Family Dollar founder Leon Levine, Amy Levine Dawson.
It seems to be led by Plotkin, who made his name and fortune on Wall Street — first as a successful trader for well-known investor Steve Cohen, and later with his own firm, Melvin Capital Management. It was a hedge fund that made investments for wealthy clients and large institutional funds.
Many of Plotkin’s public interviews over the years have been on the topic of finance. But in a rare 2020 podcast interview, Plotkin said he sees parallels between Wall Street and sports, as both require a “desire to compete” and improve every day.
“I take so much pride in what I do and how I go about it, that I’m going to give it my all every day — that’s a mentality that oftentimes you do find in athletics,” he said. “… I like sports, because in sports you fail a lot. You build the ego to handle that and understand you’re not defining yourself by every at-bat, every shot, every throw. … In Wall Street, no matter how good you are, you’re going to make mistakes almost half the time. The ability to handle that and make smart decisions and understand when you’re right and when you’re wrong is really important.”
Plotkin has described himself as growing up in a middle-class family in Portland, Maine, where he attended public school before heading to Northwestern University, where he graduated in 2001 with an economics degree.
After stints at several hedge funds, he became a top portfolio manager for Cohen’s previous hedge-fund firm, SAC Capital Advisors. With Cohen’s support, Plotkin left in 2014 to start his own firm, Melvin Capital, which he named after his grandfather.
In the podcast interview, Plotkin says that while other Wall Street firms decorated their offices with expensive artwork, his firm decided to decorate its office with famous quotes — not to save money, but because it revealed the firm’s mentality. The first quote he hung up, he said, was from legendary Green Bay Packers coach Vince Lombardi. It said:
Winning is not a sometime thing. It’s an all the time thing. You don’t win once in a while. You don’t do things right once in a while. You do them right all the time. Winning is habit.
And on Wall Street, Plotkin kept winning — for a while. The Wall Street Journal wrote in 2022: “Plotkin compiled one of the best track records in the industry and a reputation as a sharp short-seller.” Short sellers make bets that shares of public companies are going to fall, and in 2018, Plotkin was named to Forbes’ list of highest-earning hedge fund managers, with an estimated $300M in compensation.
But the firm started to unravel in January 2021, when amateur traders who exchanged investment strategies on electronic bulletin board Reddit started buying shares of video game retailer GameStop, driving up its price, which punished short-sellers like Melvin Capital who were betting on share prices to fall.
The “meme-stock rally” wound up being short-lived, but it cost Melvin Capital nearly $7B, or more than half its assets under management, the Wall Street Journal reported. Plotkin wrote to his investors after the episode: “I am sorry. I got this one wrong. I made a mistake. I apologize,” the New York Post reported.
In Congressional testimony about the meme-stock rally, Plotkin said that what took place was unprecedented and left him “personally humbled” — and he criticized Reddit users for targeting him personally: “They took information contained in our [Securities and Exchange Commission] filings and encouraged others to trade in the opposite direction,” Plotkin said. “Many of these posts were laced with anti-Semitic slurs directed at me and others. The posts said things like, ‘It’s very clear we need a second Holocaust. The Jews can’t keep getting away with this.’”
Plotkin testified virtually to Congress in 2021 about the unusual trades in GameStop that decimated his firm, Melvin Capital Management.
Plotkin announced last year he was closing Melvin Capital.
The GameStop episode happened just as he was closing on the purchase of two adjacent houses in Miami Beach. One was a 12,700 s.f., 9 bedroom, 12 full bathroom house that sold for $32M; the one next door was a 4 bedroom, 4 bath home advertised as a “teardown” for $12M, according to real estate publication The Real Deal. He later filed plans to build tennis courts and a 1,300 s.f. “cabana” on the property. His Miami Beach neighbors include former supermodel Cindy Crawford.
Plotkin and his wife, Yaara Bank-Plotkin, split their time between Florida and New York City, where they are active in their synagogue on the Upper East Side, the Daily Mail reported in 2021.
Plotkin, who bought a minority stake in the Hornets in 2019, has given no media interviews since Friday’s announcement that his group is buying a majority stake — so it’s hard to say how he envisions his community involvement in Charlotte, or if he thinks he can turn around a team that usually has losing seasons and hasn’t won a playoff series since 2002.
Other interesting background on Plotkin, from the 2020 podcast interview:
On what he would be doing if he weren’t in finance: “Probably something in sports. Even as a little kid — sounds like I’m in a generation in the 1920s — but the newspaper would come on a Sunday, and I would go through every number, every baseball player, and I would memorize them all. … I’d dive into all those numbers, and I enjoy that stuff, … where you’re using numbers and analytics to understand and predict who are going to be the best players — which is basically what you’re doing with stocks.”
On his favorite sports hero: “Tom Brady. … He’s an amazing guy, and he has done everything right.”
On meeting Michael Jordan: “The cool thing is what you would expect is exactly what you get. Here’s a guy who’s super competitive. He’s not hiding anything. … He’s very comfortable with who he is as a person. … Some sports figures, there’s always something they’re kind of hiding. I think with him, it’s pretty open.”
On how he met his wife: “I was living in Chicago, and I was in New York for a couple days to look for an apartment. … I was moving to New York. … We had several friends in town, so we all went out and went to a bunch of bars. … At the end of the night, it was probably 2 or 3 in the morning. We were somewhere in the West Village. We went to a diner. We had met some girls. We were hanging out with the girls at the diner. And then these two other girls came in, and they were probably a little more attractive than the girls we were with. So my buddy immediately went over there and started talking to them. … I went over there and said I’ll sit with my buddy, and we hit it off, my [future] wife and I. … It wasn’t my initial plan to move to New York and get tied up, but we hit it off. … With a lot of girls that I dated in the past, everyone is playing games and thinking of rules, but with her it was just very natural. … We hit it off, and now we’ve got a bunch of kids.”
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2023 election preview: Familiar City Council faces run for re-election; Will Elyse Dashew go for another school board term?
It’s almost political season in Charlotte again, with filing for several key offices opening in less than three weeks.
Candidates can file to run this year for Charlotte City Council and mayor, three seats on the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of education and the leadership of Mecklenburg’s towns.
The Ledger talked with several political insiders last week, and here’s how races seem to be shaping up:
◼️ Charlotte mayor: She hasn’t announced anything yet, but Mayor Vi Lyles is expected to run for a fourth term. Lyles, a Democrat who has served as mayor since 2017, is widely considered unbeatable.
◼️ Charlotte City Council at-large: There are four seats. Of the incumbents, three are expected to run for re-election: Dimple Ajmera, James “Smuggie” Mitchell and LaWana Mayfield. (Mayfield announced last week that she’s running.) Mayor Pro Tem Braxton Winston is not running for re-election after choosing to run for N.C. Labor Commissioner in 2024.
Council member Victoria Watlington, who represents a district that includes west Charlotte and Steele Creek, is running this year for an at-large spot. That makes four well-known Democrats running for four seats that are heavily favored to remain Democratic, though there are likely to be others who run.
◼️ Charlotte City Council districts: With the exception of Watlington, the council’s current district representatives are expected to run again — Democrats Dante Anderson, Renee Johnson, Marjorie Molina and Malcolm Graham; and Republicans Tariq Bokhari and Ed Driggs. Some of the incumbents will have challengers, but it is hard to beat incumbent district representatives.
In Watlington’s District 3, Democrat Tiawana Brown — who came within 500 votes of beating Watlington last year but lost 54%-46% — is expected to run for that open seat.
One closely watched race will be in District 6 in south Charlotte, which is expected to be a rematch between Bokhari and Democrat Stephanie Hand, who has announced her candidacy. Bokhari barely beat her last year, 51%-49%. There have been some rumblings that Hand might consider running for an at-large spot, but as of now it looks like a rematch with Bokhari.
◼️ School board: The three at-large seats on the nine-member Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education will be on the ballot in November, and there will be some changes.
Incumbent Jennifer De La Jara has announced she is not running. Lenora Shipp is expected to run again. And the big question is whether board chair Elyse Dashew will run for a third term. Her campaign Facebook page hasn’t been updated since September 2021, and the website she has used for past campaigns, elysedashew.com, no longer works. (Dashew didn’t return an email from The Ledger over the weekend.)
If she does not run, that would leave two seats open, on a board that has five members who were elected just last year. Nationally and in CMS, elections have not been kind to sitting school board members, as many districts struggle with student performance coming out of the pandemic, when leaders opted to move to virtual instruction.
Candidates are expected to include Liz Monterrey, Shamaiye Haynes and Brian Kasher.
Candidate filing starts July 7 and runs through July 21.
The primary for Charlotte City Council and mayor is Sept. 12, with a runoff, if needed, on Oct. 10. The general election is Nov. 7 and will have the school board race, city races and a $2.5B school bond referendum. —TM
For sale at Habitat ReStore: Humpy Wheeler’s 1985 award from the Charlotte Public Relations Society
Acting on a reader tip, we found this framed award for sale at the Habitat for Humanity ReStore on Wendover Road on Saturday. It says it was given to Humpy Wheeler, the former president of Charlotte Motor Speedway, on Oct. 8, 1985, by the Charlotte Public Relations Society. Asking price: $3.
🎧 Ledger Podcast: Salvaging food to feed Charlotte’s hungry
Maybe you’ve never thought about it, but Charlotte cafeterias often have extra food. Meanwhile, local charities can often need food to feed the hungry. A local nonprofit called Feeding Charlotte is bridging the gap between the two, helping solve a food distribution problem.
Our latest episode of The Charlotte Ledger Podcast examines Feeding Charlotte’s work, in an interview with co-founder Kim Aprill.
It is part of our series interviewing winners of The Ledger’s 40 Over 40 awards, which spotlight people making Charlotte a better place. Aprill talks with podcast host Steve Dunn of Miles Mediation and Arbitration.
How to listen: The Charlotte Ledger Podcast is available on our website, as well as on podcast platforms including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast and Google Podcasts. —TM
You might be interested in these Charlotte events
Events submitted by readers to The Ledger’s events board:
THURSDAY: Real Talk for First Time Homebuyers Navigating the Charlotte Market, 6-7:30 p.m., NoDa Brewing Co. Discover the secrets to conquering the Charlotte real estate market at our FREE event! Get insider tips, free food & drink along with a $500 lender credit toward closing costs. Join local Real Estate and Mortgage experts at NoDa Brewing for an engaging and informative relaxed event. Free.
◼️ Check out the full Ledger events board.
➡️ List your event on the Ledger events board.
In brief:
N.C. abortion lawsuit: Abortion providers in North Carolina are suing the state in federal court to stop a new state law banning most abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy. The new rules are supposed to start July 1. (Associated Press)
New event venue at Camp North End: Best Impressions Caterers has opened a 30,000 s.f. event space at Camp North End called The Revelry that can hold 250 to 1,800 people. Rentals start at $7,500. (Axios Charlotte)
Poll on ABC system: A new poll found that respondents in North Carolina favor privatizing the state’s ABC system by a margin of 44%-22%. But the survey by the conservative John Locke Foundation also found that people are satisfied with the existing system of selling liquor, 50%-22%. (N.C. Tribune)
Cooper vetoes GOP workplace bill: Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper vetoed a Republican-backed bill that would prohibit state workplaces from promoting beliefs that some lawmakers have likened to critical race theory. The measure passed by veto-proof majorities in both chambers. (Associated Press)
Four shot at nightclub: One person was killed and three were injured in a shooting at the Fusion Lounge on Independence Boulevard early Saturday. (WSOC)
Zoning decision: The Charlotte City Council is scheduled to vote Tuesday on a controversial rezoning petition that would allow 212 additional apartments at a complex across from Providence High School on Pineville-Matthews Road, among other votes.
MrBeast Burgers imperiled? North Carolina YouTube star MrBeast said on Twitter that he’s losing interest in his MrBeast Burger venture, which sells hamburgers from hundreds of internet-order-only kitchens. “The problem with Beast Burger is I can’t guarantee the quality of the order. When working with other restaurants it’s impossible to control it sadly,” MrBeast wrote. (MrBeast on Twitter)
Free cookie in Cotswold: A Crumbl Cookies store is scheduled to open at Cotswold Village on Friday, with a free cookie for anyone who downloads the company’s app.
Taking stock
Unless you are a day trader, checking your stocks daily is unhealthy. So how about weekly? How local stocks of note fared last week (through Friday’s close), and year to date:
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The Charlotte Ledger is a locally owned media company that delivers smart and essential news through e-newsletters and on a website. We strive for fairness and accuracy and will correct all known errors. The content reflects the independent editorial judgment of The Charlotte Ledger. Any advertising, paid marketing, or sponsored content will be clearly labeled.
Executive editor: Tony Mecia; Managing editor: Cristina Bolling; Staff writer: Lindsey Banks; Contributing editor: Tim Whitmire, CXN Advisory; Contributing photographer/videographer: Kevin Young, The 5 and 2 Project