By Irwin Speizer
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| Mark Nordlicht |
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| Uri Landesman (photographs by Mark Hartman |
When it comes to investments, Mark Nordlicht is decidedly agnostic. As the founder, chairman and chief investment officer of Platinum Partners, he follows his profit instincts wherever they lead: lending money to explore seemingly dry oil and gas wells in Texas, making loans for advance settlement payments to plaintiffs in personal injury claims, providing financing to a company that makes handheld bomb-detection devices, investing in a business that plans to put convenience stores inside Chinese post offices.
Launched in 2003, Platinum manages about $930 million and employs a multistrategy format, with an emphasis on multi. Nordlicht takes two or three pitches each week as he scours the globe, looking for opportunities that others might miss. Platinum’s flagship, the Value Arbitrage Fund, has about 40% of its assets tied up in unusual investments that are often hard to value or quickly...