The host of private equity firms interested in acquiring NTL will not take Bill Huff lightly. The bond hedge-fund manager rarely leaves his office in Morristown, New Jersey, or grants interviews to the press but he has long had a reputation as one of the toughest negotiators on Wall Street.
Once the largest shareholder in the combined NTL/Telewest entity, Mr Huff has recently whittled down his stake in NTL. He now holds 6.9 per cent and has sold 1.2 million shares in the 60 days up to June 16, according to SEC filings.
Last year the activist investor made plain his opposition to a private equity bid.
Mr Huff and his employee Edwin Banks currently sit on the board of NTL.
The activist investor was thrust into the limelight in Britain when he emerged as a bondholder at NTL. Mr Huff helped to revive the troubled cable company after it fell into bankruptcy, even serving as the firm’s chairman in 2003.
Advertisement
The secretive investor founded his firm in 1984 with two former colleagues from Eberstadt Asset Management.
He lives near the office with his wife, Cathy, who is general counsel at the hedge fund. The couple have three children. Mr Huff also has a child from a previous marriage.
The son of a butcher and a waitress, Mr Huff was born in New York in February 1950. He took night classes to study for a bachelor’s degree in accounting at Baruch College at the City University of New York.
Mr Huff is an avid collector of fossils, minerals and antique maps and he is also a keen furniture maker.