Newark Star Ledger – When he isn’t dealing with distressed assets, Timothy Wheeler rocks.
A bankruptcy lawyer with Lowenstein Sandler in Roseland, Wheeler is the lead singer for the Subscribers, a rock group comprised mostly of professionals in the hedge-fund industry who play charity gigs.
“It’s a chance to give back for professionals like us who, maybe, don’t have the best reputation for giving back,” he said.
The group is named for a term that describes investors in a hedge fund, and it uses a stock certificate for its logo. The Subscribers have raised $500,000 in charitable donations during their two years of existence.
That’s chump change in the hedge-fund business, but it’s enough to help a charity some of its members have founded. “A Leg to Stand On” (www.altso.org) pays for prosthetic limbs and corrective surgery for disabled Third World children.
The rock-for-charity concept combines the international languages of music and money, according to founding band member Chris Heasman.
“Someone called what we’re doing charity rock, but we think of ourselves as an arbitrage party band,” Heasman said. “We capture the spread between the cost of having a great party and making a charitable donation.”
