Talk:Steven Tananbaum

Updates to Career and Personal life

Hi, I have a conflict of interest with Steven Tananbaum and am looking for assistance implementing the following suggested updates for the Career section of the article:

• In the second paragraph, add a sentence about Tananbaum's role at GoldenTree:

He manages the firm's investment team and oversees the executive committee.

• In a new paragraph, above the one which begins "In 2007, the Financial Times...", add:

In March 2022, Tananbaum's flagship hedgefund began taking positions in digital-assets and tokens. Since founding the firm, he expanded the investment strategies to more than 10, including distressed debt and emerging markets.

• At the end of the section, add:

Tananbaum is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a member of the Painting and Sculpture Acquisitions Committee for MoMA.

Additionally, please remove Westchester County, NY as a place of residence under Personal life, as this is not backed by current reference 7.

References

I am happy to discuss any of the above and looking forward to working together to improve the article. Thanks, Alexandra at L Strategies (talk) 14:13, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

@Alexandra at L Strategies  Partly done I'm afraid I'm not very impressed with these sources. The only one approaching a sense of reliable independence is Bloomberg, and yet, the Bloomberg piece is an interview with the subject himself where he is giving this information to the interviewer. Additionally there's phrasing in the request resembling industry jargon which might leave uninitiated readers at a disadvantage: Since founding the firm, he expanded the investment strategies to more than 10, including distressed debt and emerging markets as if all readers are to know offhand that "more than 10" of distressed debt and emerging market strategies are indeed numbers to note. Finally, none of the aforementioned argot used in the request is Wikilinked (nor are any of the council or sculpture committees mentioned) as they should be, to help foster reader comprehension. I'm prepared only to remove the apparently mistaken information about where the subject resides. Regards,  Spintendo  08:26, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for your work on the article, Spintendo. I'd like to address some of your feedback and recent edits:

• My apologies that I inadvertently left off the wikilinks in the appropriate places; I am rewriting the suggested sentence properly and requesting to add it to the end of Career:

Tananbaum is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a member of the Painting and Sculpture Acquisitions Committee for MoMA.

• As for the removal of the subject's Bachelor's degree, most BLPs that I have seen while researching Wikipedia do include undergraduate degrees, and discussions on the topic seem to support inclusion. Would you reconsider this, please, and reinstate the Early life section?
• The recently removed sentence about Tananbaum's inclusion in "The 20 rising hedge fund stars" was misrepresented as Financial Times' list when it is in fact Institutional Investor 's. The ranking, therefore, does indeed seem notable as it was reprinted by the Financial Times. Would you include the following updated sentence in Career?

In 2007, Institutional Investor included Tananbaum in its list of "The 20 rising hedge fund stars".

• Finally, please add the following sentence to Career, above the paragraph which begins "As of July 2023,...":

In May 2022, Tananbaum introduced a private credit fund to GoldenTree's strategies.

As Bloomberg is paywalled, I am including the relevant quote from the article - "Steve Tananbaum is making his biggest bet to date on one of the hottest corners of Wall Street: private credit."

References

I'd be happy to discuss any of the above. Thanks again, Alexandra at L Strategies (talk) 17:53, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

Hello, Alexandra. I made some clean-up edits to the article. I also removed the Insider Monkey blog post, as it is not a reputable source. I'm referring to this:

<ref name="InsiderMonkey2019March5ZdinjakNina">{{cite news|last1=Zdinjak|first1=Nina|title=Steven Tananbaum's GoldenTree Asset Management's Return, AUM, and Holdings|url=https://www.insidermonkey.com/blog/steven-tananbaums-goldentree-asset-managements-return-aum-and-holdings-728128/|accessdate=6 September 2019|agency=Koala Guide LLC|issue=Hedge Funds|publisher=Insider Monkey|date=5 March 2019|language=English }}</ref>.

We might need a replacement for that source. I DO consider Pensions & Investments to be a WP:RS acceptable source. The specific investment types you mentioned aren't argot, but they should probably be appropriately wikilinked. Sometime in the next few days, I will have a look at the remaining changes you requested in October.--FeralOink (talk) 03:31, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

FeralOink, thanks for your work on the article so far. I appreciate your feedback and thoughts. Would you be able to review the remaining requests above and implement as you see fit? Thank you very much. Alexandra at L Strategies (talk) 15:39, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

Additional updates for the article

Hi, I have a couple more updates to suggest for the article:

• In the subsection Legal proceedings under Art collecting, a lawsuit is mentioned without reference to the settlement which was later reached. Please add a sentence which includes the conclusion of the case:

In January 2020, an agreement was filed in Manhattan Supreme Court and the case was settled with undisclosed terms.

• Please add to the Philanthropy section:

Tananbaum supports the Chair in International Economics position at the Council on Foreign Relations.

No, this cannot be added, please see below for details.--FeralOink (talk) 16:19, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

Additionally, I am including two requests which may have gotten lost in the discussion above:

• The recently removed sentence about Tananbaum's inclusion in "The 20 rising hedge fund stars" was misrepresented as Financial Times' list when it is in fact Institutional Investor 's. The ranking, therefore, does indeed seem notable as it was reprinted by the Financial Times. Please include the following updated sentence in Career:

In 2007, Institutional Investor included Tananbaum in its list of "The 20 rising hedge fund stars".

• As the prior reference backing the subject's education wasn't considered reliable, I have rephrased the sentence and added two alternative sources:

Tananbaum is a Vassar College graduate.

References

I'd appreciate any relevant feedback on my suggestions and assistance with implementation. Pinging FeralOink as you've previously worked on the article. Thanks, Alexandra at L Strategies (talk) 22:08, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

I have done the first and fourth of these. I'll leave the other two for a while, in case thee are any objections as they are less straightforward. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:13, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

Thank you very much, Pigsonthewing. Alexandra at L Strategies (talk) 16:18, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Pigsonthewing As there haven't been any comments regarding the remaining two requests, would you be able to assist with implementing those edits? Thanks so much. Alexandra at L Strategies (talk) 15:23, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

I am responding to your request for assistance with the above, as one experienced with biographical and museum articles. I can help you, but I am not a financial expert, so:

(1) Please could you kindly let me know whether my interpretation of your projected edit is correct - i.e. is this financial or political support (I am guessing financial)?

• (Is this what it means?) "Tananbaum financially supports the establishment and maintenance of the Chair in International Economics position at the Council on Foreign Relations*.

(2) The Financial Times citation has a paywall, so I cannot verify the citation for "In 2007, Institutional Investor included Tananbaum in its list of "The 20 rising hedge fund stars". You need to ask someone who has a subscription, for that one.

(3) Re "Tananbaum is a Vassar College graduate", There is a paywall at the NY Times (ref 4 above), and ref 5 above does not mention Vasser. Therefore I cannot add that to the article. Please ask someone with a subscription to the NY Times. Storye book (talk) 15:44, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

Storye book is correct about item 3. Tananbaum paid money to fund a position, i.e. a job, at the Council on Foreign Relations. This is not considered encyclopedic content and we cannot include it.

I ran into the same problem as Storye regarding graduation from Vassar College. I am not challenging it and it is definitely an appropriate fact to include in this BLP. I don't have a subscription to the NYT so I cannot verify the source.--FeralOink (talk) 16:16, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

Thank you, FeralOink. So number (1) is out. We are just waiting for confirmation of citations for numbers (2) and (3) above. Storye book (talk) 16:35, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

Ah, I understand what you are saying now! Yes, Storye book, you are correct. Thank you!--FeralOink (talk) 16:38, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

Thank you Storye book and FeralOink for your responses.

• The NYT source and sentence regarding Tananbaum's graduation from Vassar College had already been verified and added by another editor, so that's all set.
• Regarding the Financial Times paywall, I am pasting the headline and his listing in number 19 from the source:

Via Opalesque, comes Institutional Investor’s list of the top 20 rising stars of the hedge fund world.

Here are the names, with pictures and profile available here:

19. Steven A Tananbaum, GoldenTree Asset Management, 42

I'd be happy to email a screenshot to any editor, if that helps.

I'd appreciate if you can now add the updated sentence to Career:

In 2007, Institutional Investor included Tananbaum in its list of "The 20 rising hedge fund stars".

• Relating to the removal of mention that Tananbaum is "a member of the Painting and Sculpture Acquisitions Committee for MoMA", I wondered what the reasoning is especially considering your inclusion of it previously? I noticed you had inadvertently left off the source at the time so I've included it again, if it may help to reinstate that part of the sentence.
• Please could you also add the following update to the end of the Career section:

Tananbaum was a speaker at the World Economic Forum in January 2024.

References

Again, I appreciate your feedback and assistance with implementation. Please let me know if anything else needs further clarification. Alexandra at L Strategies (talk) 16:58, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for your additions to the citations, Alexandra at L Strategies. I would have been happy to have added the above "20 greatest" fact to the article, with your quotation included in the citation. That would have been acceptable in a balanced article.

However I've taken another look at the article, and it is clearly not balanced at all. It is a hagiography. There are many WP biographies which contain only positive information, but that is often because they are historical articles about people who have been remembered for their good works, and history has not preserved any balancing negative facts about them. In this case we have an article whose creation is driven by a paid employee, where balancing facts would be available, but may or may not be subject to being edited out by the paid employee.

What other editors do is up to them, but for myself, I feel that I cannot add further strong praise quotations to the article until there is sufficient and cited balancing material. At the very least, it would be good to see whether there was a significant period in his life when he had to struggle against the odds? Storye book (talk) 09:37, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

I concur with Storye book. The article IS hagiography. Being a speaker at the WEF and being on a committee at the Museum of Modern Art is not encyclopedic content. (Regarding the WEF, the photo of him has fully spelled out words of WEF printed prominently on the backdrop.) I cannot participate in further editing of this article.--FeralOink (talk) 16:19, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

Storye book and FeralOink, thank you both for your input. Alexandra at L Strategies (talk) 14:41, 20 February 2024 (UTC)